ENTERTAINMENT


GENRE REPORT


Entertainment TV has


found a new lease of life, with several new big hits


across the schedules and a feeling that there’s more to come. Tim Dams reports


ENTERTAINMENT D 32


espite – or perhaps because of – the challenges of the pandemic, the spotlight is firmly on the entertainment genre. With people forced to


stay at home, they gathered together around their televisions to watch positive, uplifting, escapist and above all entertaining fare amidst the depths of the Covid crisis. Five of the top 10 rating shows of 2020 were unscripted: I’m A Celebrity, Strictly Come Dancing, Great British Bake Off, Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway. “I would say lockdown has probably been


beneficial for the genre,” says James Townley, global head of content development at superindie group Banijay. “There’s been lots of family co- viewing like you had 20 years ago for big Saturday night entertainment shows.”


A HITS BUSINESS The clear audience appreciation for entertainment


has led many broadcasters and streamers to double down on the genre. They’ve also been encouraged by the success


of new formats. The February grand finale of the second series of ITV’s The Masked Singer peaked with a whopping 10.6million viewers as Joss Stone was unmasked as Sausage and won the series Meanwhile, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos


hailed Too Hot to Handle as its “biggest competition show ever” after the series premiered last April, soon before ordering another two series of the Talkback-produced show. Too Hot to Handle was named as Netflix’s most-watched show in 10 countries by Wall Street analyst Bernstein Research.


televisual.com Summer 2021 For years, entertainment has been eclipsed by


drama as the most dynamic and talked about genre in TV. Many say it suffered from a marked lack of innovation and risk taking, instead being reliant on long running brands that have dominated the schedules for 20 years. Even before the pandemic, however, this was


changing. New shows such as The Masked Singer and the BBC’s The Wall, as well as Channel 4’s poaching of Taskmaster from UKTV, demonstrated the ambitions of broadcasters in the genre. More recently, a slew of new shows have


launched. Following the success of Masked Singer, guessing formats are one of the big new trends, as seen in shows such as BBC1’s I Can See Your Voice and ITV’s Game Of Talents. The guessing trend has extended to factual entertainment too, notably BBC One’s This is My House. Nostalgia is big too. Blankety Blank is


being rebooted for BBC One with Bradley Walsh hosting, while Family Fortunes returned last year with Gino D’Acompo as host and Alan Carr’s Epic Game Show reworked versions of past ITV game shows. Dating and reality is also a major


focus for many broadcasters and streamers following the recent success of Netflix’s Too Hot to Handle and Love is Blind. “It feels like there’s a real


resurgence of entertainment,” says Derek McLean, co- founder of The Masked Singer producer Bandicoot, part of the Argonon group. “It does


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