'The Voice U.K.' Tour Canceled Amid Weak Ticket Sales

A planned live tour of BBC music talent show The Voice U.K. has been canceled amid a lack of ticket sales, the Telegraph reported.

The concert tour was scheduled to go to 11 cities, including Manchester, Brighton, Cardiff and Glasgow, and showcase the show's eight finalists. Ticket buyers are being offered refunds.

The U.K. version of the hit NBC show is a £20 million ($31 million) program on BBC One, which opened strongly this year in its debut season, even beating Simon Cowell's Britain's Got Talent for several weeks, but then saw sharp viewership drops. At its height in late April, The Voice U.K. drew nearly 11 million viewers, but its final show drew only 7 million.

The show features will.i.am, Tom Jones, Danny O'Donoghue and Jessie J as coaches.

Winner Leanne Mitchell earned a deal with music giant Universal Music, but a download version of her debut single failed to make the top 40 in its first week, the Telegraph said.

"Unfortunately, The Voice U.K. Live has been canceled due to lack of ticket sales," a spokesman for the planned tour told the Telegraph.

The BBC has continued to support the show, saying it reached an average of 9.2 million viewers over the first season. That marks the best entertainment show launch since research methods changed in 2001, it said. BBC One controller Danny Cohen has said, though, that the network would look to "learn" from the experiences of the first season.

Email: Georg.Szalai@thr.com

Twitter: @georgszalai