Britain's Got Talent: Viewers warned of major shake-up for series 18 schedule with new format revealed

The 18th series of the ITV talent competition show kick off two weeks ago. Judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden, Alesha Dixon, and Bruno Tonioli are joined by guest judge KSI and hosts Ant & Dec as they welcome acts to Blackpool for this year’s auditions.

The new Blackpool-based audition stage is not the only shake-up for the Saturday night favourite, with viewers being told of a new schedule for upcoming episodes.

For the first time in the show’s history, BGT has hit screens in February instead of its normal air date in April. The show is filling the gap of Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, which wrapped up its final series in April 2024.

As a result of the extended series, bosses have had to stretch out the episodes to cover a few months more than normal.

Episodes no longer air on Saturdays and Sundays, instead just airing on Saturday only. This means that the show’s weekly output during the audition stage has effectively been cut in half, with the same number of audition episode over a longer period of time.

There’s also all change during the live semi-finals. BGT has traditionally aired the live semi-finals across one week, airing every week night with the grand final airing on the Sunday. However, this year the live semi-finals will air weekly on Saturday nights.

Lily Wilson, the Commissioning Editor for Entertainment at ITV, said: "We want to hit that family audience. Starting in February means we can build excitement over a longer period while making the live semi-finals a much bigger event."