Cowell was booed by fans on his return to the show, in response to last week’s axing of popular judge and pop singer Cheryl Cole from her role on the American version of ‘The X Factor’.
According to unofficial overnight figures, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ peaked at 13.5 million, a 49% share, across ITV1, ITV1 HD and ITV1 +1. Without the contribution from ITV1’s time-shifted channel, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ had a peak audience of 13 million.
The peak of 13.5 million was up from a peak audience of 12.3 million for the first live show of the 2010 series.
Although Cowell has not been a permanent member of the judging panel of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ this year, as he has been involved in launching ‘The X Factor’ in the US, he will appear in the live shows every night this week.
Despite announcing its four main judges last night, ITV has yet to announce whether Cowell will make an appearance in this year’s series of the British version of ‘The X Factor’. Cowell is seen as important for the series’ success and is expected to return in the later stages.
Between 7.30pm and 9pm, ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ had an average audience of 10.92 million on ITV1 and ITV1 HD, a 41.9% share. A further 367,700 watched the show on ITV1 +1.
Last night’s show average also beat the average audience for the equivalent show in 2010, which stood at 10.7 million.
ITV1 had an average audience of 9.3 million, and a 38% share, between 7pm and 10.30pm last night, compared with an audience of 4.1 million, a 17% share, for BBC One over the same period.
The results show, which saw 12-year-old Ronan Park and pianist Paul Gbegbaje go through to the next round, had an average of 10.03 million viewers, a 38.2% share. An additional 200,100 watched the results show on ITV1 +1.
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