The Voice expected to stay at the BBC despite interest from ITV

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/14/the-voice-bbc-itv

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The BBC is expected to hang on to its Saturday night talent contest The Voice despite competition from ITV and criticism from the government that the show is a waste of licence fee payers’ money.

BBC entertainment chiefs are thought to be close to agreeing a new deal to extend the show by up to three years when its current contract runs out after next year’s fifth series, which will star will.i.am, Paloma Faith, Boy George and Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson.

The Voice, one of BBC1’s biggest-rating entertainment shows, has been controversial since the the corporation beat ITV to the rights to the Dutch format four years ago in a £20m deal.

Related: BBC's The Voice 'could switch to ITV'

But it is also a proven ratings winner at a time when BBC1 has struggled to come up with new entertainment shows for Saturday night, including recent adventure gameshow flop Prized Apart.

Culture secretary John Whittingdale, currently overseeing a wholesale review of the BBC’s future size and funding as part of the renewal of its royal charter, has been critical of the show.

He questioned whether it was a good use of licence fee payers money to buy the show and described it as “way outside the definition of what I call public service broadcasting”.

“The Voice has been very popular, but the fact it was contested between the BBC and ITV, the result was to force up the money paid for it,” Whittingdale told the Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival in August.

“It was going to be on free-to-air so should the BBC get into bidding wars? Is that a good use of the licence payers’ money?”

Each series of the show costs about £11m to make with the BBC said to be keen to hold onto the show but not at any cost. ITV wanted the show four years ago but lost out to the BBC.

A BBC source said: “We love The Voice and want to keep it, but we will not get into a bidding war.”

The Voice was singled out by the government’s green paper on the future of the BBC, which it said was a bought-in format for £20m and compared it to BBC1’s other big Saturday night hit, Strictly Come Dancing, which was “developed by the BBC in-house and then sold abroad”.

Former BBC chairman Michael Grade has also been critical of the programme. “It’s just a clone; there’s nothing original about it,” Grade said last month. “The chairs turn around, that’s it. It’s not enough for me.”

But BBC director general Tony Hall has defended the show, telling MPs last month it was “done in a particularly BBC way” after Tory MP Damian Collins claimed it was “not original and not particularly distinctive”.

However, Hall added: “My ambition is the next time we have a big entertainment show on the BBC, it will be made in-house.”

The BBC faces a 10% cut in its funding in real terms – but will aim to make cost savings of twice that – after it took on the £700m cost of free TV licences for the over-75s in its controversial deal with the government earlier this year.

Hall has said it is “inevitable” that services will have to be closed as a result, with proposals due to be published by the BBC before the end of the year.

The future of The Voice was given a further twist earlier this year when ITV bought the company behind the show and co-producer of its UK incarnation, Talpa Media, which makes it with another independent production company, Wall To Wall.

When the BBC last renewed its deal for the show, thought to be two years ago, a senior executive with the programme-makers said they chose to go with the BBC rather than ITV for “creative reasons”.

ITV’s own Saturday night singing contest, The X Factor, is still one of its biggest- rating shows but audiences have been in decline since 2010 and have continued to fall despite the introduction of Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw and former Voice coach Rita Oraas judges.

A BBC spokesman said the corporation was “in negotiations” about the future of the show.