Final BBC series of The Voice UK falls for second year

Saturday night brought the return of spinny-chair karaoke show The Voice (BBC One, 7:30pm) for one final lap of glory on the BBC (summat to do with a bunch of evil meddling Tories), with the fifth series bringing yet another much-needed shape up to the judging panel.

Following in the footsteps of renowned mammoth-voiced singing legends such as Kylie and Danny O’Donoghue, Saturday débuted the latest ironic evaluator of vocal worthiness, Boy George, whose own voice purrs with the finesse of a 50-year old cement mixer with a serious smoking habit.

Much like former judge Rita Ora, the show has plans to defect to commercial broadcaster ITV, with the viewer experience enhanced through repetitive advertising interruptions and constant text-to-win temptations flashing before the screen.

But before all that happens viewers still have a few more weeks to enjoy The Voice UK in its purest and most dizzyingly intoxicating form.

Unfortunately for BBC One (or ITV, I suppose) series five opened up with a bang of the wrong kind, bringing in the second lowest début audience yet.

Opening with an overnight figure of 8.4 million viewers back in March 2012, the show offered up a nicer and cuddlier take on destroying ordinary people’s dreams but the audience fell to 6.2 million by the time the second series rolled around.[advert position=”left”]

2014’s début jumped all the way back up to 8.4 million as Kylie and Ricky Wilson joined the team but fell back down to 8 million viewers for last year’s series.

Saturday’s hour and a half launch saw Paloma Faith excitedly jump in Sir Tom Jones’ empty chair, joining the magnetic, charismatic eruption of Boy George, Ricky Wilson and I-clearly-have-nothing-better-to-be-doing Will-I-Am.

7.1 million viewers tuned in to catch the new line-up flex their awkward banter skills but not before the foursome got together for the traditional cringe inducing opening number, resulting in a 32% share and the day’s biggest audience.

Perhaps the falling ratings had something to do with the fact it had to compete with the tail end of self-assured-people-falling-over show, Ninja Warrior UK (ITV, 7pm).

3.9 million viewers spent their evening sitting on the sofa watching the super-fit satisfyingly fall on their faces, resulting in an 18% share.

Also battling it out with BBC’s talent show was ITV’s artistic ode to the drunken Saturday night chip van experience, as a group of over-excited and over-stylised women leered at a few men on Take Me Out (8pm).

3 million viewers tuned in to be reminded why they were spending the night as far away from nightclubs as possible, resulting in a 13% share.

Sunday, unsurprisingly, was a different experience. The tone was set at 6:30pm on BBC One as the highly sobering Countryfile netted the weekend’s biggest audience. 7.4 million viewers watched as Matt Baker uncovered the exciting world of oilseed-rape farming, resulting in a 34% share.

Afterwards, the antiquated comedic stylings of Still Open All Hours (BBC One, 7:30pm) bagged the day’s number two slot with 7 million viewers and a 31% share, while the actual antiques in Antiques Roadshow (BBC One) secured 5.5 million viewers and a 22% share at 8pm.

ITV’s big offering of the evening was a two hour trip to the picturesque Oxford of yesteryear in Endeavour (8pm), although it proved to be just as dangerous as it is in both Morse and Lewis.

The two hour episode saw Baby Morse (Shaun Evans) deal with a spout of dicky tummies among his police force while investigating a (possibly linked) fatal fire, netting a healthy 4.7 million viewers and a 19% share.

At 9pm, Channel 5 detailed the fallout of the first Celebrity Big Brother eviction and brought in 1.8 million viewers and an 8% share.

Slightly less distressing was the sight of a disbanded ITV ‘personality’ enjoying a nice break on the thrilling My Mediterranean with Adrian Chiles (BBC Two, 9pm), with 1.2 million viewers (a 5% share) coming along for the ride.

Colourful youth spy drama Deutschland 83 continued at 9pm on Channel 4, with the second episode seeing a damaging week on week fall of -34%, resulting in 821,000 viewers and a 3% share.

Doing a little better was the second episode of BBC One’s take on historical epic, War and Peace, although there was a -15% drop from last week’s début.

The densely populated drama opened up with 6.3 million viewers last Sunday, with the audience falling to 5.3 million and a 22% share for last night’s instalment.

Overnight data is available each morning in mediatel.co.uk’s TV Database, with all BARB registered subscribers able to view reports for terrestrial networks and key multi-channel stations. Overnight data supplied by TRP are based on 15 minute slot averages. This may differ from tape checked figures, which are based on a programme’s actual start and end time.

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