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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 hav

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.

autoexec 4y ago
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.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  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.
- bckygldstn 4y ago
  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.
  - GauntletWizard 4y ago
    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.
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    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.
    - boomboomsubban 4y ago
      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.
      - jldugger 4y ago
        > 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.
        boomboomsubban 4y ago
        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.
        4y ago
- Bluecobra 4y ago
  > 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.
  - lowercased 4y ago
    > so hell bent against making more money 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.
  - autoexec 4y ago
    > 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.
  - martinflack 4y ago
    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. [0] https://www.britbox.com/us/ https://www.britbox.com/us/
    - KerrAvon 4y ago
      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.
- robocat 4y ago
  > I wish they'd do it with panel shows 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. Disclaimer: if English were a race, I’d lose.
- ck425 4y ago
  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 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.
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  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.
  - denton-scratch 4y ago
    The Daily Show did well. 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".
    - lupire 4y ago
      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.
      - autoexec 4y ago
        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.
        4y ago
- rsynnott 4y ago
  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?
  - substation13 4y ago
    The creators of Downtown have a conservative agenda.
umeshunni 4y ago
But is that 1% number higher now (e.g shows like Bridgerton or the Crown) because of Netflix and other OTT platforms?
p1necone 4y ago
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.
pksebben 4y ago
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.
iopq 4y ago
How many people watched House of the Dragon in the US?

autoexec 4y ago

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.

pessimizer 4y ago
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.
bckygldstn 4y ago
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.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  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.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  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.
  - boomboomsubban 4y ago
    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.
    - jldugger 4y ago
      > 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.
      - boomboomsubban 4y ago
        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.
        4y ago
Bluecobra 4y ago
> 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.
- lowercased 4y ago
  > so hell bent against making more money 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.
- autoexec 4y ago
  > 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.
- martinflack 4y ago
  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. [0] https://www.britbox.com/us/ https://www.britbox.com/us/
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    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.
robocat 4y ago
> I wish they'd do it with panel shows 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. Disclaimer: if English were a race, I’d lose.
ck425 4y ago
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 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.
ryanbrunner 4y ago
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.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  The Daily Show did well. 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".
  - lupire 4y ago
    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.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      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.
      - 4y ago
rsynnott 4y ago
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?
- substation13 4y ago
  The creators of Downtown have a conservative agenda.

umeshunni 4y ago

But is that 1% number higher now (e.g shows like Bridgerton or the Crown) because of Netflix and other OTT platforms?

p1necone 4y ago

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.

pksebben 4y ago

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.

iopq 4y ago

How many people watched House of the Dragon in the US?