‘Britain’s Got Talent’ final ratings down slightly following Collabro’s win

The official numbers are in, and “Britain’s Got Talent” failed to reach the heights of past years … but still, what we have ahead is a fine example of the British press freaking out yet again over nothing.

The peak audience for last night’s spectacular, which saw vocal group Collabro taking the title over Lucy Kay and Bars & Melody, was 12.7 million viewers. That is down only 200,000 from the year before, which is an excellent retention rate. Most shows are lucky to lose 10% of their audience year-to-year, which means that this year’s show would have dipped under 12 million and the press would’ve given themselves a coronary.

One thing that does get lost in the shuffle here is how unsaturated the British TV market remains for many viewers. If the same percentage of viewers in America watched a singular TV show that did in Britain, there would be a show stateside that had more than 60 million people checking it out. Not even the finale of “Friends” (52.5 million) or the first season of “Survivor” (51.7 million) scored that. The only major event that tends to surpass it is the Super Bowl, which is watched by around a third of Americans every year.

So what does the future hold for the winner of the season in Collabro? We see opportunities here for the group to be able to go off and record an album, and maybe tour some parts of the UK and Europe. Given that they are hard-working, attractive guys with a great talent of talent, they definitely have a chance to have the best post-show career since Susan Boyle. She and Paul Potts are really the only two “superstars” that have emerged from this show over the years.

If you want to see the full placement of the acts from last night, we suggest just heading over to the link here. Also, sign up for some updates on all we cover via our official newsletter.

Photo: ITV