‘The Voice’ UK, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ at war again with schedules

As much as we’ve groaned here at times over “The Voice” being put up directly against “American Idol” or “The X Factor,” none of this is as groan-inducing as what we’ve seen British TV networks do in the past year when it comes to “Britain’s Got Talent” versus “The Voice” UK. Last year, Simon Cowell was fuming when BBC One scheduled their singing competition to directly take viewers away from his long-running series, a move that he took very personally. Now that he sees “The Voice” declining, it now seems like Cowell and ITV are sniffing blood in the water.

ITV announced this week that on April 13, the “Britain’s Got Talent” premiere is going to air a full hour earlier than usual in 7:00 p.m. local time. Why? It’s clear from this perspective: they want to deliver a knockout punch to a series that they think is causing more viewers to erode from the singing-competition genre than usual due to market saturation. Cowell has also accused “The Voice” franchise in general of borrowing from some of his concepts, including having judges that also in some ways double as your mentors.

Ultimately, we don’t really care for this strategy for one reason: it hurts people who are genuinely interested in watching as much of both shows as possible. You should make moves based on your fans first, and not everyone has some sort of recording device or likes to watch TV online. This instead just feels like petty in-fighting.

For those curious, BBC has moved up their April 13 “Voice” UK to 6:45, just so that they can try to get their viewers hooked before anyone watches “Britain’s Got Talent” to begin with.

Cowell has already defeated “The Voice” UK once this year: his appearance on Ant & Dec’s Saturday talk show toppled the singing show in total viewers last weekend.

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