The two exits are separate decisions, and together they strip the show of both its presenter and its defining coach. Emma Willis is fronting Strictly Come Dancing. She remains on the current series of The Voice UK because that series was pre-recorded, which is why viewers have been watching her host a singing show on ITV while she hosts the BBC dance show on the same night. The Voice episode of 3 October was moved to about 9pm to avoid that clash. Strictly still took the larger audience. Her departure to the BBC is not a sacking. It is a transfer to the programme that is currently winning the Saturday-night fight. Sir Tom Jones’s departure is the opposite kind of leaving. He said he wanted to stay. She is going to the show that beat him in the ratings.

That contrast will shape how series 15 is judged. Stacey Solomon and Alesha Dixon inherit a hosting job whose previous occupant has just become the face of the compeтιтion. Cheryl and Aitch inherit chairs vacated by Sir Tom Jones, Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones, with Kelly Rowland and will.i.am as the remaining continuity. ITV Studios owns the format, Lifted Entertainment produces the UK version, and the international business still has value even if the domestic overnight is weak. A domestic revival is still what the 2027 campaign will be sold on. The network has called Cheryl and Aitch major additions and has kept the door slightly open for Sir Tom Jones in a smaller role. He has already said he is not thrilled with a reduced appearance. If he does not return at all, the new series will have no on-screen bridge to the coach who spent the longest time in the job.

The question for ITV is no longer whether it can find another singer. The blind auditions will still produce chair turns, and a new panel can still make good television in short clips. The question is whether Cheryl, Aitch, Kelly Rowland, will.i.am, Stacey Solomon and Alesha Dixon can make people sit through a full Saturday episode after Sir Tom Jones and Emma Willis have both gone. The current series has the rest of its run to show whether the old combination can stabilise above the 1.5 million overnight. The new combination has until 2027 to prove that a refresh was a rescue rather than the last familiar thing leaving the building.

ITV can argue that a show stuck below two million cannot be saved by keeping the same chairs. The counter-argument, made by Metro’s Adam Miller and by the i Paper in the days after the announcement, is that he was the credibility the format had left. The Voice UK has never produced a star on the scale of the big Saturday-night contests, with Becky Hill the usual exception and a contested one, because her career is often described as happening despite the show. If the coaches are the attraction, removing the one viewers name first is a bet that chemistry can be rebuilt from scratch. The boycott posts do not decide that bet. They do show that a slice of the old audience has already made its choice, and that the choice was about Sir Tom Jones rather than about Cheryl or Aitch, who had not yet been fully announced when the first wave of anger landed.