How are we keeping our nation entertained?
As we all tuned in to watch Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway on the 21st March 2020, it reeled in an average 9.5 million fans, peaking at 11.1 million, breaking the shows own record and largest overnight draw on any channel so far, this year.
It is no surprise that audience ratings are peaking whilst we are all sat at home isolated from our family and friends. I don’t know about you, but being able to watch TV programmes such as Rich Stein’s Mediterranean Escapes, keeps me going. Reminiscing on what life was like and what life will be like again, makes me feel ‘normal’.
For me TV has always been about entertainment and staying in the know and so of course it’s one of the top things to do during lockdown. Disney + definitely came at the right time!
Our industry is primarily focused on the premise of human interaction, and so how do we find that balance of staying at home but keeping our country entertained?
For many people work has run dry, as the industry adapt to the new stay at home mentality. On the premise of human interaction, we are simply unable to film. Productions that are still going, are running under the new government guidelines and therefore a stripped back crew is vital.
Thankfully our genius broadcasters are responding to our ‘new world’, working around the clock to come up with new formats that allow staying at home and social distancing to happen! The BBC’s HealthCheck UK Live is one of them. Below is a direct link:
I don’t know about you but my social media pages are filled with false information, it really is the Chinese whispers affect. There is nothing better than hearing health professionals giving our nation the right answers to our endless questions. There is also nothing better than jumping up and dancing to Mr Motivator’s short workouts. We need more of him on our screens!
Gogglebox, a sofa based programme which features TV punditry from real people, sitting on their sofa’s watching TV. In a world where our nation is watching more TV than ever, why should it stop? Thankfully it hasn’t! Cameras have been rigged in the living rooms of the show’s stars and therefore filming can go ahead without the use of additional crew members. I hope our broadcasters continue to respond to this creative challenge with new shows alike, otherwise our well known Gogglebox faces will have nothing to watch!
I spoke to a few of my industry colleagues and friends, to find out how they are adapting to our new measures. One colleague who works on a current affairs programme said that they’d been getting contributors to film their own video diaries. They’d video chat them at the same time, so that they can see the shot and brief them to amend if necessary.
Our post production world is another area that can thankfully keep moving. With editors being able to remote edit with the software being installed on their PC’s at home, makes the impossible, possible. One person I spoke to said that edit producing has been made more difficult as the editor cannot respond to edit requests as quickly, but they are making it work.
Archive researching is a job that all us researchers wish we had in the bank right now, with the industry digging through archives to keep us entertained. I am also seeing a lot of user generated content which is great. It may not give the perfect finish we all strive for, but it really does show that we’re all in this together. No matter who you are, we are all doing the same thing right now, staying at home.
As ITV keep saying, let’s keep talking. In a time more than ever, some people are losing their jobs and loneliness is growing rapidly, as people isolate at home alone. It’s important to know as an industry we are all in this together. Let’s keep talking and keep our nation entertained!