Britain's Got Talent rakes in just 7.1 million viewers on average but gains 4 billion total views on social accounts over the past 12 months

Britain's Got Talent has scored an average of 7.1 million viewers during its current series, including repeat, ahead of the season 17 final next Sunday.

According to ITV, the show - with Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon and Bruno Tonioli as the current judges - is the biggest entertainment series of the year so far across any channel.

But the talent contest has still seen a marked drop in its popularity over the years, with the current ratings a long way away from its peak 13 million in 2009.

The current series got off to a promising start last month, with overnight figures showing the launch episode saw an average of 5 million viewers tuning in, with a peak of 5.8 million.

The ratings made it ITV’s biggest overnight audience of the year since The FA Cup quarter final match the month prior, which garnered 5.5 million viewers.

But despite gaining strong viewers for the broadcaster, the ratings were still down from last year's launch episode. 

The 2023 opener peaked at 6.2million viewers, which ITV said was its highest rated programme of the year.

It reflects a steady decline in viewings for the show, after the 2022 series premiere saw a TV audience peak of 7.2 million, following a two year break due to Covid. 

However, the show's online reach is far wider, with 24.1 billion total views of clips, and raking in 4 billion in total views over the past 12 months.

BGT's YouTube channel has 20 million subscribers, with its most viewed clip being Calum Scott's 2015 audition with a version of Dancing On My Own, which has 390 million views. 

So far, the latest series of BGT has been viewed 660 million times across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

And Sydnie Christmas' audition, which featured in last month's launch episode, has been viewed 54 million times in six weeks.

In contrast, the YouTube channel of their BBC rival, Strictly Come Dancing, has 772,000 subscribers, with its most-watched video being a performance by the professional dancers to Cotton Eye Joe, receiving nine million views. 

It comes just days after it was reported that BGT are set to sign a huge £100 million deal that could see the ITV show spread over three months.

In a bid to overtake Strictly, producers are reportedly hoping to fill the space left by Saturday Night Takeaway, by airing a future series from February through to May.

For many years BGT has aired for seven weeks, before the live semi-finals are spread over five nights in a single week.

The show, produced by Thames, is reaching the end of its five-year contract in 2025, and following the huge online success of clips from the show, its expected to land another three or five-year contract with ITV.

A source told The Sun: 'Stretching BGT over three months could make it more of a presence.

'Online is where advertisers are now pumping in their money, but to get the clips they need the show. So BGT's creators have the upper hand as they strike a new deal.'

A three-month BGT would feature six Saturdays of audition episodes, following six Saturdays of semi-finals, before a live final, with bosses even considering the addition of Sunday results, akin to The X Factor years earlier.

Currently the show airs all of its semi-finals and final in the same week, with this year's series set to conclude on June 2.