Britain's Got Talent series to help cure economic blues, says Simon Cowell
Simon Cowell will return as main judge alongside Piers Morgan and Amanda Holden
* Leigh Holmwood
* The Guardian, Saturday 11 April 2009
Its mixture of dancing dogs, amateur opera singers and good old-fashioned family entertainment propelled ITV1's variety show Britain's Got Talent to the top of the ratings last year. Now ITV hopes its third series tonight will provide a much-needed ratings boost.
Simon Cowell, the svengali turned reality TV show millionaire, will again return as the main judge alongside former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan and actor Amanda Holden. The trio have the power to shatter dreams or create megastars. The winner of the first series, mobile phone salesman Paul Potts, has become an opera sensation, his debut album selling 3.5m copies. The winner of last year's show, street dancer George Sampson, 15, has since had a No1 DVD and a sell-out West End show.
Cowell, who also created the format and rakes in millions of pounds from its worldwide sales, said this year's series would have added resonance with a public besieged by bad news.
"It is feelgood TV and great fun," he said, speaking from Los Angeles, where he is judging American Idol. "I also think there is a lot of bad press about young people at the moment, but you will see some of the young people on the first show who have put groups together off their own backs and rehearsed and done some pretty fantastic stuff, and so it is also a balance to all the negative things you read."
Cowell said the by now familiar mix of bizarre and heart-warming acts, which in the first episode include a man who can pull a truck by his ear, was a "snapshot of Britain". "You have got the total crazies and the real talent and you get the unexpected stories like Paul Potts. It is only possible on a show like this," he said.
Andrew Llinares, an executive producer on the show, said people could be cynical about populist shows such as Britain's Got Talent, but viewers had a real emotional attachment to them. "There can be cynics about these kind of shows but we always say they are working when they make people feel something and care about the highs and the lows," he said. "When you watch an episode of Britain's Got Talent, you go through all the gamut of emotions. It is genuinely a show with a heart and I hope it has a positive effect, particularly when there is a lot of bad news around."
The show very nearly didn't make it on to British TV screens after its original host, Paul O'Grady, defected to Channel 4. It was only after the US network NBC took a punt and won big ratings that ITV bought it, bringing in Ant and Dec as frontmen.
"It was a tough show to sell to ITV," Cowell said. "But I remember sending a text to ITV five minutes into the first audition saying 'This is going to be a huge hit'. It just works.
"It is down to who turns up and we are lucky that we get this incredible selection of people. Among all the wacky and good people you get tonnes of people who wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance of getting a recording contract and they turn into stars overnight like Paul Potts."
Recessions are traditionally good times for entertainment television, with more people choosing to stay in and watch the box than spend money on going out. In previous downturns in the 1980s, formats such as New Faces and Opportunity Knocks, hosted by Bob Monkhouse and Les Dawson, also thrived.
ITV has been hit hard by the advertising downturn, slashing 1,600 jobs and millions of pounds from its budget, but it will be hoping for bumper ratings after the show's final last year pulled in 14 million viewers.
As well as being a sure-fire ratings hit, shows such as Britain's Got Talent are more cost-effective than shorter runs of expensive dramas, with the ITV executive chairman, Michael Grade, saying the broadcaster will in future air more entertainment, particularly mid-week - another potential opportunity for Cowell, who says he already has a new idea in mind
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