Britain's Got Talent series 5

Judges and Presenter(s) for Britain's Got Talent Series 5

David Hasselhoff

Michael McIntyre

Amanda Holden

Simon Cowell (second half)

Louis Walsh (Guest)

Ant & Dec(ITV1)

Stephen Mulhern(ITV2)

The fifth series of British talent competition programme Britain's Got Talent was broadcast on ITV, from 16 April to 4 June 2011; due to live coverage of the 2011 UEFA Champions League Final on 28 May, the final audition episode of the series was pushed back a day to avoid clashing with it. As Piers Morgan had departed from the programme the previous year, and the schedule of Simon Cowell made him unable to attend auditions,^[1] the producers arranged for Amanda Holden to be joined by David Hasselhoff and Michael McIntyre on the judging panel.^[2] Due to Hasselhoff's schedule during filming of the auditions, Louis Walsh stepped in as a guest judge for the sessions he could not attend.^[3]

This series saw the judging panel expanded to four judges for the first time in the programme's history, albeit for the live episodes – Cowell chose not to have either replacement drop out when he returned to attend the remainder of the contest. Because of this decision, the rules for the judges' vote had to be amended so that the public vote could be used to deal with a tied vote amongst the panel between the 2nd and 3rd placed semi-finalists of a semi-final. Apart from the change in format for the live rounds, the programme's studio used for live episodes was given a considerable revamp for the new series.^[4]

The fifth series was won by singer Jai McDowall, with singer Ronan Parke finishing in second place and boyband New Bounce third. During its broadcast, the series averaged around 10.9 million viewers, and was the first in the show's history to be aired in high definition. In an interview made after the series' broadcast, hosts Ant & Dec marked the fifth series as a poor one for the show because of the low quality of some of the participants that took part.^[5] During the broadcast of the fifth series, the programme faced accusations of unfair treatment to participants, while the producers had to bring in police to investigate a suspected act of online bullying against one of the semi-finalists during production.