ITV lifts ban on BBC stars promoting The Voice, saying: “We’ve won the war”

ITV lifts ban on BBC stars promoting The Voice, saying: “We’ve won the war”

ITV have lifted a ban on promoting BBC’s The Voice on their shows after insisting “we’ve won the war”.

The Voice went head-to-head last Saturday with Britain’s Got Talent and got 7.7 million compared to 13 million for Simon Cowell’s show.

The BBC is now moving the start time of The Voice from 7pm to 8.20pm to avoid clashing again and ITV are so confident they have the bigger show, they are allowing judges from the BBC series to promote the singing talent contest on ITV programmes.

Will.i.am will be on The Jonathan Ross Show this weekend and other interviews are thought to be planned for Jesse J and Danny O’Donoghue in the coming weeks.

It follows a period last year where all Voice judges were banned from appearing on ITV and scheduled interviews on Loose Women, Daybreak and This Morning were pulled.

At the time The Voice was beating BGT in t he ratings. But last night an ITV source said: “We don’t fear them anymore, BGT is the number one show on Saturday nights and that is the way we think it will stay.

“If The Voice judges want to come onto ITV they are welcome, we are confident we have won the war this time.”

Simon Cowell has continued to mock The Voice in the build up to the two shows clashing.

It cost the BBC £22m over two years and Cowell joked: “Is it on again. They paid for it again?

"Wow. I think they should fix their chairs, they keep spinning around.

“You’ve got to remember that they brought this show to the UK two years ago to compete with us.

“We were there already on Saturday nights. They’re the ones that wanted a competition, we never asked for it, they did. So it’s their problem, not my problem.”

Danny O’Donogue from The Voice has denied the two shows are competing directly. Speaking about the ITV rival, he said: “No, it’s a ta lent show, not a singing show.

“The only place you can put them up against each other is in the papers, we don’t do that.”

Referring to the previous year when the show pulled in up to 10 million before dipping, he added: “It was our first season, we smashed all expectations, it was the biggest BBC entertainment show in last ten years, incredible. But we have learned this year.

“The changes aren’t drastic; they are just lengthening out the good bits of the show like the blind auditions. More people were watching us than the Brits.”

View gallery

• "
• "
• "
• "
• "
• "
• "
• "
• "
• "

View gallery