The ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ live shows could go ahead without a live audience.
Last month it was revealed the ITV talent competition would have its live shows postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but the broadcaster’s head of entertainment Katie Rawcliffe has now said they could still press on with the next stage of the show without the live audience.
Speaking in an online Q&A from Edinburgh TV Festival, she said: "It looks like we will have to do some shows without audiences. This whole experience has brought out more creativity in people and the best in people, we all have to think a bit harder about how we do things."
Katie confirmed live shows will not take place until later in the year, and said they are still "in stages of planning" how to tackle the difficult situation.
She added: "The live shows we are hoping to do later this year, we are still in stages of planning and are talking about what might be possible.
"We are very much in pre-production, as are the rest of the shows for the rest of the year."
Also during the Q&A session, ITV’s head of studios Kevin Lygo said not having audiences will be easy to "get around", but noted there may be further issues due to the number of people needed to film the live shows.
This year’s auditions – which were filmed before the lockdown in the UK and aired this month – included a dance group from India called X1X made up of 30 people, and Kevin said implementing social distancing will be a "severe challenge".
He said: "I think we can get around generally speaking, an audience, it’s where, with Britain’s Got Talent, where you have groups of people performing together, how are we going to do that, that’s going to be the real test.
"There’s that bunch of Indian kids, the dance troupe … that will be a severe challenge."
ITV are looking at also filming ‘The Voice’ and ‘The Masked Singer’ without an audience, and Kevin believes pre-recording the shows will make things more "manageable".
He added: "The Masked Singer (was) a pre-recorded show, is more manageable for us and the production staff to do, in an enclosed, guarded space."
Britain’s Got Talent could go ahead without a live audience
