Both BGT and Clarkson were under 3m last night by the looks of things, that’s probably put ITV off trying anything like that again.
I would like to see a Christmas Special of Saturday Night Takeaway though.
They did a couple of Christmas Takeaways in the past, one on Christmas Eve 2004 and one on Boxing Day 2009, although as the latter was during the period when Takeaway was being "rested" it went under the banner of Ant and Dec's Christmas Show, though it was still very Takeaway-esque. And it was rubbish, really, being pre-recorded meant all you lose all the stuff that makes Takeaway so good - the liveness, the ad-libbing, the sense of spectacle with all the OBs - and ended up with all the worst bits - the contrived jokes and the ITV cross-promotion, basically.
Britain's Got Talent is a bit like when Dancing on Ice was on Christmas Day a decade ago, and flopped massively, while Strictly the same day did brilliantly. It's not an entirely fair comparison because Dancing on Ice was part of a far weaker schedule on ITV, but you would think if Strictly can do well on Christmas Day, Dancing on Ice would too, especially as the show was in its pomp at the time. But I think it helps that Strictly only finished less than a week ago, so the bandwagon is still rolling - I know it's always recorded before the final, and this year was a clip show - and it feels a bit more relevant, whereas Dancing on Ice, and Britain's Got Talent, finished a while back so it seems like yesterday's news.
In any case, it's hard to say "these figures prove the audience want something new" when the highest rated programme for C4, yet again, was Home Alone 2, ITV's top three was Corrie, Emmerdale and The Chase and Call The Midwife's ratings had gone up.