The Voice draws biggest audience of the series but loses out to Britain's Got Talent in ratings war

Saturday night ratings battle: Britain's Got Talent versus The Voice (BBC/ITV)

Britain's Got Talent triumphed again in the Saturday night ratings battle - but The Voice drew its biggest audience of the series, despite a later slot.

ITV's BGT landed an average audience of 10.3 million - including viewers of its +1 catch-up channel - while BBC1's programme drew 7.9 million.

Last week the two shows went head-to-head, but this week the BBC went for a later slot because they said that avoiding a clash was in the best interests of viewers.

And the later 8.20pm start time proved to be a bonus as the show piled on more than a million extra viewers. Its previous best of the series so far had been a week earlier when it drew an average of 6.7 million.

However it is a marked drop on the equivalent show last year when the fourth episode of the series had an audience of more than 10 million.

This week's BGT was down slightly on last week when it had an average audience of 10.5 million.

PA