Not at all. There's a cadre of people who enjoy British television programming in America, but they don't count. I'd estimate that the number of people that have watched for example the UK office is maybe 1% or less than the people that watched the US office in the US.
You wouldn't have look very hard to find an American who has seen Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, or Bake Off. The biggest problem keeping Americans from watching UK TV is access, not some inherent dislike or disinterest in compelling television whenever British people are involved.
A show has to be wildly popular before Americans even get the chance to be exposed to it, which really limits the amount of viewers for UK programing, but that's no reason to assume that shows have to be recast and refilmed before an appreciable number of Americans will be interested in them.
If American producers want to remake shows from the UK I wish they'd do it with panel shows. It's an entertaining genre seen in many countries that just never took off in the US. At least then they'd be more justified in bringing in American talent so guests are more recognizable.
> The biggest problem keeping Americans from watching UK TV is access
I love British TV. I would happily pay for a UK television license if I could access iPlayer/Channel 4/etc from the US. I don’t get why they are so hell bent against making more money and insist on region locking content. Instead I have to resort to pirating it or buying import DVDs/BluRays.
A long time ago I used to pay for a Linux shell account on a UK provider so I could access iPlayer via a SOCKS proxy. (This was long before VPN providers were popular.). It was awesome to see the latest Top Gear or Kitchen Nightmare episode. It’s a shame we’re locked out of such wonderful content.
You should look into BritBox[0], a BBC and ITV project, available on Roku, Amazon, and probably other platforms. I have no affiliation; I was just born and raised as a child in the UK and miss the shows. It's got quite a lot.
It does, but it’s also a frustrating demonstration of the access problem. It’s mostly a cavalcade of endless police/detective/murder mystery shows. It has Red Dwarf and classic Doctor Who, but the panel show selection is spotty and they don’t bother to add new seasons in a timely fashion. It does have much of Would I Lie To You but they don’t add new episodes when they air in the UK. They seem to have given up on adding new seasons of 8 Out of 10 Cats Dows Countdown.
I can't watch Red Dwarf any more. It has aged terribly. The overacting (eg The Cat), the canned laughter to fit the TV format... I think I was just "meh" about it until I listened to the audiobook read by Chris Barrie (the actor who played Rimmer). I didn't even want to listen to it but my wife insisted that I'd love it. I did. In contrast to the TV series, the book is fresh, genuinely funny and surprisingly astute. The story is narrated by Rimmer, who is a wonderfully awful character, full of self-loathing and false confidence. I challenge anyone to listen to that audiobook without finding embarrassing parallels between themselves and Rimmer. The characters of Lister and Rimmer are more fully developed, making the TV series feel thin and pointless in contrast. I suppose it was pitched too hard at evening British TV audiences of the late 80s.
Whatever. The effect is horrible. And plenty of times live audiences are worse than the ones that come out of a can. Watch the "WAT" video twice, and you'll know what I'm talking about... That one person who has to laugh fast and loud to let everybody know "I GOT THE JOKE BETTER THAN YOU DID". It gets in the way of the viewer engaging with the show.
> I don’t get why they are so hell bent against making more money and insist on region locking content.
Maybe it has something to do with the license being a tax vs a service charge? Seems like opening the door for anyone with an internet connection would only help fund quality programing. $160 a year isn't terrible. Maybe there are issues with distribution rights too. I'd do it too if I could, but I'm with you and I'll take what options they leave me with.
They may still be making more money by regional licensing than just opening up paid streaming to the rest of the world. The support on that alone might be ... expensive.
Have any of the US talk shows started to copy Graham Norton's "all guests on the couch together" style?
For anyone unfamiliar Graham Norton hosts a late night style talk show but instead of inviting guests out one by one and talking to each in turn he brings them all out together. He still focuses in on each guest at times but he jumps between and encourages them to engage with each other like a good dinner party host. Here's an example of British comedian Greg Davies telling a story while Ryan Gosling next to him dies of laughter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuXGpUR7fXA
It essentially copies the best parts of panel shows and since he started doing that a lot of folk (most notably Jonathon Ross) have started to copy.
During Covid, a lot of atypical British stuff showed up on US network tv. Not new stuff, either; networks picked through the recent catalog to find stuff they thought would work. One example was Dead Pixels.
> If American produces want to remake shows from the UK I wish they'd do it with panel shows.
They do, but they are very bad. They just remade Would I Lie To You? recently. It was not very funny. They did a Taskmaster a few years ago. Horrific.
There was a US remake of Taskmaster, which is like 50% a panel show. It was exceedingly terrible despite keeping 1 of the 2 UK hosts, and especially compared to the excellent New Zealand and Swedish Taskmaster remakes.
I agree about access though. I've introduced a bunch of US friends to Taksmaster who devour the seasons available on youtube, but are then out of options to see the rest.
I can't find it but Alex Horne did an interview about the US remake and why it didn't work. The main reason in his opinion was that the network insisted on making it 30min (presumably 22min with ads) and that meant they had to cut out a lot of the contestant banter. The tasks themselves are funny but what really adds the humour is the interactions between the contestants, the TaskMaster and his assistant.
Maybe that decision was due to the USA's lack of panel shows?
USA "unscripted" shows are terrible. The producers think the audience is too dumb to tolerate genuine conversation, and/or they can't find any charismatic people to put on screen.
Kitchen Nightmares is the canonical side-by-side example of how the USA style ruins everything.
It’s ridiculous how much money they are leaving money on the table in the US. Taskmaster (UK) has a huge following among US teenagers, at least in my area.
The CW tried licensing Taskmaster and it got abysmal ratings. They'd be better if they did same day broadcasts, but any later wouldn't be enough to replace those teenager's current watching methods.
> The CW tried licensing Taskmaster and it got abysmal ratings
While I usually like Reggie Watts' work, his persona on the show was too cerebral. Felt like someone at The CW got afraid of the word 'master' but figured they could balance it out with a nice black guy role playing a psychotherapist for the competitors.
Also Lisa Lamponelli was just 100 percent angry the entire season, as if Alex Horne was personally responsible for all childhood leukemia. As a bit gag during an obnoxious task it can work but if thats all you do it fundamentally rejects the premise.
You're discussing the US version on Comedy Central. A few years ago The CW licensed and aired the British version. It got terrible ratings and was dropped after a single episode.
I'm not sure airing a single episode is a good measure of interest. Especially if they didn't market it much. What's the point of going through the trouble to secure the rights to air something if you aren't going to give it a fair shot? I really don't get the reasoning behind these kinds of decisions. I've heard amazon cancels shows if they don't perform well enough after their first few weeks on prime.
With all the things competing for our attention, they should really give people more time to find things. I understand that they really really want to force people to watch things on their schedule, but those days are over. They've had some success with forcing people to wait week to week for new episodes, but personally I won't start a show like that until I can binge watch it.
Equally confusing was netflix canceling originals they'd already invested heavily in before the story had concluded. Shows with fans who were left pissed off. Netflix could have had a quality title in their catalogue for those who like it instead of bait for new generations of pissed off fans.
> I'm not sure airing a single episode is a good measure of interest.
It's probably not in most cases.
How many decades have we heard of shows that were about to be axed because of poor ratings or apparent disinterest, then... somehow they turned out to be megashows? Even something as simple as changing the day it was aired often could make or break a show.
> personally I won't start a show like that until I can binge watch it.
Rewatching some older shows (frasier, right now), my wife and I notice some things that... just weren't an issue 30 years ago. "We just saw this story line last week!" Well... no, it was from 2 seasons earlier, which translated to 2 years earlier back in the 90s. But binging things back to back that were produced for annual serialization ... it's not how they were intended to be consumed.
Are 'shows' now being produced with the knowledge they'll all be watched within a couple of days, not dramatically played out over weeks/months? Will 'cliffhangers' continue to be a thing to get you to 'tune in next time!'?
> Are 'shows' now being produced with the knowledge they'll all be watched within a couple of days, not dramatically played out over weeks/months?
I think so. They'd have to have been aware of the risk once it was common for TV shows to be released on DVD and anything developed for streaming services should expect it too. It seems like shows really stepped up their continuity game after internet fandoms started pointing out all their mistakes.
Shows do still have cliffhangers, but that crutch isn't leaned on as often outside of season finales. I doubt we'll get many shows that always end on them these days.
They have options, now - Taskmaster had its own streaming service, which is a weird flex. I love the show but skipped it because it's not worth $50 for temporary access to, though I'd gladly pay $25 for a "perpetual" license.
Comedy is too fractured in the US for panel shows to really work IMO. I think a big part of why panel shows work so well in the UK is you have a lot of camaraderie and familiarity with the relatively smaller and more tightly knit group of UK comedians (it doesn't take long at all watching panel shows to start seeing familiar faces), which definitely helps keep banter running smoothly.
The UK panel show that I can't miss is Have I Got News For You. It's a weekly 30min news review, by very quick-witted comics. As a review of UK news, it obviously wouldn't travel; and the two (permanent) team captains are very English, and likely unknown in the USA. But there's clearly a market for that kind of satirical news review.
They skate close to the libel laws; Ian Hislop, one of the two team captains, is the editor of Private Eye, a satirical print weekly that has a long history of defending (and losing) libel actions. "Did I just say something libellous? Never mind, they'll cut it before transmission".
How can you not mention Charlie Brooker's Wipe, which ultimately led to Black Mirror.
Last Week Tonight is kind of valuable, but flawed (unfunny off-topic humor, dishonest in its propagandizing for good causes), but most importantly, John Oliver's Activism Hour stole the name of what should be a very different show.
I feel the same way about the show's flaws, but i do still find it informative enough that's worthwhile to watch. You really do have to watch out for the bias though. I can't remember offhand if I've ever caught them outright lying about anything, but they are very selective in what they present and how which means they'll often leave out very important information and context.
> but they are very selective in what they present and how which means they'll often leave out very important information and context.
part of what i've found with something like that is... I've already heard the other context or 'important information'. Something like LWT is a balancing factor, not the primary source of info in the first place (well, for me anyway).
My guess is that Poms value wit, and the majority of Americans don’t (in my experience). Within most any social class in the UK, wit is recognised: watching say a street cleaner make a sublimey witty comment is comedic fools gold. Also the British colony owerlords relentlessly take the piss out of themselves, maybe just so the French can’t beat them, oooo errr.
Meanwhile us colony exploiters would like to be able to give the BBC money so we can enjoy their terrible programmeing. But those anti-capitalist-royalist-uneuropean-twats won’t accept our livres for their crooked tooth pictures.
Downton Abbey in particular was _designed_ for export (and I'm pretty sure is more popular in the US than the UK). If it was designed purely for a domestic market, it would probably have been a lot less... naive?
The Office is a bad example in this context though, because it's the one show where the US version was (arguably) an improvement over the UK version, and way more popular than the UK version even outside of the US.
if there's an exception that proves this rule, it's gotta be top gear. I know plenty who have watched every episode with the Clarkson gang and not sat through a whole episode of the American port.
