Emma Willis Runs Two Shows as Strictly Launch Holds

Strictly Come Dancing’s launch peaked at 5.8 million viewers on Saturday, 19 September, while Emma Willis also hosted The Voice on ITV the same night. BBC overnight figures put the average at 5.3 million, 100,000 below the 2025 launch, with a 49.2% share the corporation said was 7% higher than last year.

The night did not restore the 6.7 million peak of 2023. It did hand one presenter a double shift that no ratings table for a single show can hold.

Emma Willis, Two Channels, One Saturday

Willis opened The Voice UK at 6.10pm on ITV1, then walked into BBC One at 7.25pm as one of Strictly’s three new hosts. Across the two programmes she helped draw a combined audience of about 7 million viewers, a haul larger than Strictly’s own average and far larger than The Voice’s.

ITV moved the singing contest off its usual 7pm start so the two shows would not overlap. The Voice was scheduled to finish at 7.25pm, the minute Strictly began, which let her viewers change channel without choosing. A BBC insider said Strictly bosses already like working with her, and that they know they are the bigger show.

EMMA’S SATURDAY

• The Voice: 6.10pm to 7.25pm on ITV1, peaking at 2 million and averaging 1.6 million.
• Strictly: 7.25pm on BBC One, peaking at 5.8 million and averaging 5.3 million.
• The overlap: none on the clock, by ITV’s design, after the singing show was pulled forward from 7pm.
• The combined take: about 7 million viewers across both programmes.

She has presented The Voice since 2014 and is in her twelfth series as host. This run is her last. Stacey Solomon and Alesha Dixon take over in 2027, after she committed to Strictly with Josh Widdicombe and Johannes Radebe. For several more Saturdays she will keep doing both jobs in the same evening, which is an odd kind of power: the BBC’s new face is still ITV’s Saturday host.

One television source called it quite an achievement to be on primetime ITV1 and BBC One at the same time. That is the booking the overnight row about three presenters keeps stepping around. The corporation did not only replace Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman. It hired a presenter who already owned a rival slot, then watched ITV rearrange its grid around her.

5.8 Million at the Peak, 49.2% of the Slot

The BBC said Saturday’s peak was 200,000 higher than last year’s launch, which hit 5.6 million. The average of 5.3 million sat just under 2025’s 5.4 million. Share, the figure that records how much of the TV set Strictly held, was 49.2%, and the BBC said that was 7% higher than last year. It also said the show had more than 4 million extra viewers than any other programme on at the same time.

TV ratings tracker Liam Hamilton put the average at 5.3 million as well, in line with the BBC, and at about half of all sets in use across a nearly two-hour debut. Those are overnight numbers. They miss catch-up, and the BBC said they were not the “full picture of all those who watch,” with the episode sitting at number one on iPlayer’s most popular chart. Anyone who wants the episode itself can watch the launch on iPlayer while the seven-day figures are still being built.

LAUNCH OVERNIGHTS SINCE 2023

The 2024 average is left blank because published overnights for that launch do not agree. The peak of 5.7 million is the figure that does. Against 2023, this year’s peak is 0.9 million lower and the average is 1.0 million lower. That is the comparison that still hurts. Against 2025, the show basically held, with a higher peak, a slightly lower average, and a fatter share.

Last year’s finished series, counted over 28 days on BARB’s four-screen measure, averaged 7.8 million last series, with 8.6 million for the Grand Final in which Karen Carney and Carlos Gu lifted the Glitterball. That is the number Saturday will be judged against once catch-up lands, not the overnight 5.3 million. The BBC’s 2025/26 annual report already put 27% of BBC TV viewing on iPlayer, so a linear overnight was always going to undercount a show this big.

Three Hosts Walked Into a Two-Host Job

For the first time the ballroom has three hosts. Willis, Widdicombe and Radebe took over from Daly and Winkleman, who left at the end of the 2025 series. The launch was pre-recorded last week and opened with a group number from the professionals, the judges and the new presenters. BBC Press had already put out first looks at the new hosts in the ballroom, teasing that same number and the five new dancers.

Here's a sneak peek at new #Strictly presenters Emma Willis, Johannes Radebe and Josh Widdicombe in the ballroom 🪩

First looks from the 2026 launch show also tease a spectacular group number introducing the five new Strictly pro dancers!

More ➡️ https://t.co/B0LzuBJL8l pic.twitter.com/CPzYLtIej0

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) September 18, 2026

Willis did the welcome. Radebe, a former Strictly professional, stood as the dancer in the trio. Widdicombe took the comic chair. Twenty minutes in, the argument on X was already about the headcount, not the pairings. A two-host show is still what people have in their heads after Daly and Winkleman, and a third person at the front reads as surplus even when the lines are clean.

It is our genuine honour to be here, and we cannot wait to spend the next 13 weeks with all of you.

Emma Willis, Strictly Come Dancing launch

She also said she never thought she would get to dance with Strictly pros. Radebe said he never thought it would be the three of them standing in the spot. Widdicombe cut in: “No, I’ll be honest, not many people did, Johannes.” He added that the line got more of a laugh than he was hoping, and that it was “a little bit overwhelming to be here, but we are so delighted.”

Willis looked like the only one already fluent in Saturday night, which is unsurprising given The Voice. Radebe’s value is the floor, not the autocue. Widdicombe’s laugh and his place as the extra voice are what split the room. The format is not a like-for-like swap for Tess and Claudia. It is a three-way split built around a presenter who still has another channel to serve the same evening.

The Scandal Hangover Is Still in the Figures

The 0.9 million missing from the 2023 peak did not arrive with Widdicombe’s first gag. It arrived after two professionals left the show in 2024 and the BBC put chaperones in the rehearsal rooms. Amanda Abbington withdrew in week six of the 2023 series. Giovanni Pernice, her partner, was later dropped from the 2024 line-up and denied abusive or threatening behaviour. Graziano Di Prima left after his spokesman confirmed he had kicked celebrity partner Zara McDermott once in rehearsals.

THE WELFARE CRACK IN 2024

1. 23 October 2023: Abbington withdraws from Strictly in week six, having missed the previous weekend for medical reasons.
2. 10 June 2024: Pernice is left out of the professional line-up for the next series.
3. 13 July 2024: Di Prima confirms he is leaving, saying he deeply regrets the events that led to his departure.
4. 16 July 2024: the BBC puts a production staff member in all future rehearsals and adds a celebrity welfare producer and a professional dancer welfare producer.

Kate Phillips, then the BBC’s director of unscripted, said that if issues were raised, or the BBC was made aware of inappropriate behaviour, it would always take that seriously and act. Director-general Tim Davie later apologised to contestants who had had negative experiences and said the line between a will to win and unacceptable behaviour should never be crossed. Verbal bullying and harassment complaints against Pernice were upheld; claims of physical aggression were not, and he was cleared of the most serious allegations.

The 2024 launch then opened about three-quarters of a million below 2023. The 2025 launch, with Daly and Winkleman still in place, sat at 5.6 million peak and 5.4 million average. Saturday’s 5.8 million peak and 5.3 million average live on that lower floor. New hosts can change the tone of the titles. They do not, on one pre-recorded Saturday, put back a million people who left after the training-room stories.

What ITV Gave Up by Moving The Voice

The Voice peaked at 2 million and averaged 1.6 million, and it lost half a million viewers from the previous week. It could not live with Strictly at 7pm, so ITV moved it, then watched it shrink anyway. After the singing show, the channel ran Win Win with Postcode Lottery in the slot Strictly now occupies.

Sir Tom Jones, 86, used the same episode to sing “It’s Not Unusual” and to remind the audience he is being dropped. He said ITV made the decision some time ago and told him only recently. The first reason given was a financial difficulty with insurance. The later line was a refresh, with no chair for him beside Cheryl and Aitch.

So the only thing I know right now is that there’s never a good time to fire an 86-year-old who’s still pretty good at his job.

Sir Tom Jones, Instagram statement

WHAT LEAVES THE VOICE WITH HER

• The host: Willis ends a twelve-series run after 2014, with Solomon and Dixon in for 2027.
• The chair: Jones is out as a full-time coach, along with Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones.
• The slot: 7pm was surrendered on 19 September so she could reach BBC One at 7.25pm.

ITV is rebuilding a show that just moved house for a presenter it is about to lose. Strictly, on the other side of the break, still had more than 4 million extra viewers than anything else on. The BBC insider who said they would attract many more viewers than The Voice was not guessing. The overnight gap was 5.8 million to 2 million at the peak, and 5.3 million to 1.6 million on average.

The First Live Show Starts at 6.15pm on 26 September

The launch paired 15 celebrities for a run that can last 13 weeks. Dani Dyer is back with Nikita Kuzmin, the partner she had in 2025 before an ankle injury took her out. Bethany Antonia and Nancy Xu are the third all-female pairing in the show’s history, after Nicola Adams and Katya Jones in 2020 and Jayde Adams and Karen Hauer in 2022. Will Best is with Dianne Buswell, who is returning after having her first child. Five new professionals join the floor: Aleksandra Isaeva, Cristian Priori, Lethabo Monametsi, Maddie Ingoldsby and Mark Karmalita.

The first live show is Saturday, 26 September, at 6.15pm on BBC One and iPlayer, an hour earlier than the launch. There is no public vote that week. Shirley Ballas, Craig Revel Horwood, Motsi Mabuse and Anton Du Beke will still score, and those marks carry into week two, when viewers vote for the first time. Ellie Taylor takes over Strictly: It Takes Two on BBC Two, another new face on a franchise that has spent two years changing the people around the glitterball.

Saturday proved Willis can hold two channels on one night, and that Strictly can still take about half the sets in use. It did not prove the three-host format has an audience of its own, and it did not climb back to 6.7 million. The live show is where those two tests meet, with 15 couples on the floor and only one of the three new hosts already used to winning Saturday without help.