Exclusive: BGT ‘to get the axe’
ITV favourite ‘off our screens until 2022’
BRITAIN’S Got Talent is “almost certain” to be scrapped for this year, with the next series not likely to air until spring 2022.
It had been hoped that Simon Cowell’s postponed ITV variety show would be able to hold auditions over the summer and be shown in the autumn, complete with live finals.
But producers at Thames TV and Cowell’s company Syco, which make the programme, have reluctantly conceded there are no guarantees the hit series can be made safely.
A source said: “It remains unclear what restrictions on mass mingling and travel will be, there are no guarantees production can go ahead.”
Now ITV bosses are drawing up schedules for the rest of the year that do not include BGT, which is hosted by Ant and Dec.
A big part of the problem is the need for a live audience.
Earlier this month judge Amanda Holden, who appears on the judging panel alongside Cowell, Alesha Dixon and David Walliams, said it would be impossible to make BGT with a virtual audience, or an empty auditorium.
Speaking on her radio show, she said: “We call them the fifth judge and it just makes no sense not to have them behind us.” BGT’s auditions normally record from January and air around Easter, with the live finals taking place across a week in May.
The absence of work over the summer might have an upside for Ant McPartlin however – after popping the question at Christmas, he could use the break to marry his fiancee Anne-Marie Corbett.
But last night one show source insisted producers remained hopeful and were “looking at all possibilities”.