ITV has announced that it has postponed filming on the new series of Britain's Got Talent until later this year.

The long-running talent show had been due to record the auditions stages in London later this month but the imposition of a new national lockdown in England amid a surge in coronavirus cases has quashed those plans.

Last year BGT aired its auditions programmes in the Spring as usual before being forced to postpone the semi-finals and final until the Autumn as the pandemic gripped the globe.

Confirming the auditions delay, an ITV spokesman said: "The filming for the 15th series of Britain's Got Talent has been postponed from its proposed record dates in late January.

"With the announcement of the latest government health guidelines and with our priority of safeguarding the well-being of everyone involved in our programmes we, together with the production teams at Thames and Syco, have taken the decision to move the record and broadcast of the forthcoming series.

"We will confirm revised dates in due course."

A statement from the broadcaster went on to say that due to the nature of acts coming from all parts of the UK - as well as some from other countries - getting all of them safely to London this month proved impractical.

Although ITV has yet to confirm new recording dates for the new series, the most likely scenario would see auditions taking place over the Summer and the show returning as part of ITV's Autumn schedules.