Britain's Got Tired: Do televised talent competitions have a future?

By Jonathon Redden

Simon Cowell at the soon to be broadcast BGT 2024 Auditions (Credit: Getty Images)

On a Saturday night 10 years ago, everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and gathered round the TV to watch contestants battle it out in the latest edition of Britain’s Got Talent or The X Factor. Whoever you passed by the next day would no doubt have something to say about the previous night's show. These shows were so powerful they could spawn Christmas number ones, so it’s safe to say that this industry stole the spotlight of UK television at its peak.

Fast forward to 2018 - the average view count of The X Factor sits at 5 million, as opposed to 14 million in 2010. This turned out to be the show’s final series. Meanwhile, last year’s BGT broke the record for the lowest viewed series in the show’s history, dropping to 5 million from 6 million the previous year, and 8 million from 2020. How on earth could a once dominating genre fall from grace in just a few years?

The still-running X Factor Italy setup (Credit: Getty Images)

TV-experienced Angus Dixon, who is currently a Broadcast Journalism lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, said: “A lot has come out about how contestants have been treated. We’re in a world now where TV is not as harsh as it used to be, there’s an expectation that factual TV should be a bit more sensitive. I think there’s a feeling now that they’re quite contrived - because they’ve been on for so long, we know what we expect to see in terms of narratives and types of people we see on them. The general decline of TV, the changing attitude about mental health and the amount of money that’s in TV at the moment is declining so they are having to make tough decisions about what to hold onto.”

A study on Reddit asked the public if they still watch talent competitions, and only 1 in 6 nodded. One said: “I used to, then the market got saturated and it was more sob stories and gotcha moments than actual talent." Another said: “When they got really really massive they started to get more scripted, and stories came out about ill-treatment of contestants and it went downhill from there.”

It is argued that social media stole the dominance of talent shows. Angus said: “We have TikTok now and that’s a talent show in itself, because you get likes, shares, and often people get picked up to work in the music industry. You’re being judged by your peers when you’re on TikTok, not by your gatekeepers. But my suspicion is that talent shows will probably stay in some format or another but not quite as big as they once were.” But was it entirely about the acts? What about the judges? Angus said: “The panels can get a bit weak. They got Ricky Wilson from Kaiser Chiefs, and I remember thinking that’s an odd choice to get him on it, so maybe the panels do have an effect. They had Dannii Minogue on The X Factor, who had a handful of top 40 singles, I don’t even know if she had 3 or 4, but if was Kylie Minogue, then you’d be going 'yeah, that’s someone who you’d want to listen to’.”

The judging panel of the 2015 series of The Voice UK (Credit: Getty Images)

After Cowell left the show in 2011, ratings dropped by 2 million. But when he returned in 2014, the numbers only continued to decline. It is commonly argued that Cowell became too “nice” and utilised less insults against contestants he is widely known for. One Reddit user said: “Simon Cowell's problem is that he can't develop existing formats. The X Factor was fine, until it became predictable. Cowell just wanted to do the same thing over and over again, and just tinker around the edges. Hence it got boring, then pointless, then desperate.”

Angus said: “I would be tempted to try and have a live format where social media was feeding straight into the broadcast, and I think that is what TV has never really got to grips with. Radio uses social media a lot, and a lot of their comments are coming from viewers, and sometimes they will share video clips. So, I wonder if in the future, instead of judges in the studio, it’s all done by social media. When someone is on The Voice, there’s an online poll or whoever gets the most likes or shares determines who goes through to the next round. The only thing about that is it doesn’t make money for the TV companies. If they can find a way where they can monetise that, that would probably be the future.”

There was never a clear reason why talent television decreased in importance, but if we were to best sum this up, it’s that everything got a bit samey. If there was a way back for the genre, producers would have to get past a stubborn Simon and take risks. But with the right crew and talent, television absolutely has the potential to revive its glory but it will take a golden-buzzer worthy idea.