A Beginner’s Guide to American Primetime TV in Britain: Reality and Comedy

I’ve discussed American television in this column before. The storied history of sitcoms, animated series, and cable drama when they made the leap to British screens. But the nature of a free-flowing article dictates that certain shows are examined in detail, while others are virtually ignored. This can, naturally, stand no longer. So it’s time for an authoritative, exhaustive look at every network show of the 2012-2013 season, and their status in Britain: a cut-out-and-keep guide, if you will (though I’d rather you wouldn’t, could be expensive for you).

Reality

We don’t broadcast a lot of American reality shows; the vast majority of the formats either originated here, or we chose to adapt for our own needs rather than lazily import the US versions. A few have made the cut, though:

• The Amazing Race – Despite popularity in usually similar-skewing Canada and Australia, the Race hasn’t crossed over to Britain, and currently lacks a UK broadcaster. There hasn’t been a UK spinoff, either.
• American Idol – once relatively popular here, it’s gradually lost steam over the past few years, and having been shunted from high-profile ITV2 to low-profile 5*, its ratings are well on the way out (down 50%+ this year). Singing competition overload?
• America’s Funniest Home Videos – not broadcast here; we settle for our own, equally mediocre, version, “You’ve Been Framed”.
  
• America’s Next Top Model – airs on the demographically-appropriate Sky Living; not massively popular, but led to a spin-off, Britain’s Next Top Model, which was quite a success
  
• The Apprentice – somehow, it’s been picked up by the UK’s most-viewed channel BBC1, though it airs in a post-midnight slot. (We aren’t that interested in Donald Trump.) Our own version, led by Alan Sugar, is much more popular, sitting in a cushy primetime slot.
• The Bachelor – not on Brit screens right now; we had a UK version but it’s died off.
• Betty White’s Off Their Rockers – hasn’t yet made it to our shores; I’m not sure Britain quite “gets” Betty White
• The Biggest Loser – the whole weight-loss genre is popular here, we’ve had many a take on the concept. The US version gets multiple broadcasts a day on female-skewing Sky Living (alongside the Australian version).
• Cops – filler on many a little-viewed station: Cops saturates the schedules of CBS Reality, DMAX and More Than Movies, channels buried way down in the EPG. Presumably it’s cheap, easy viewers; episodes of it even make CBS Reality’s top 10 (though with just 50,000 viewers, that’s a very relative achievement).
• Dancing With The Stars – not on in the UK anymore, though it still has its fanbase her. Our own sisters in the genre, Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Ice, are phenomenally popular here, rating among the most-watched shows on TV.
• Kitchen Nightmares – the original Britain show, swears thankfully intact, is far more popular here, but Gordon Ramsay himself is enough of a draw that the US show warrants decent slots on the same channel as the predecessor
• Shark Tank – once again, the UK version (Dragons’ Den) is exponentially more popular, but Shark Tank does occasionally get a – less prestigious – outing here
• Survivor – a UK take was relatively unpopular over a decade ago; the US version hasn’t caught on at all, and isn’t currently broadcast here
• The Taste – not yet acquired by any UK channel.
• Undercover Boss – the UK original is more popular, once again, but the USA version has proved popular in daytime slots
• The Voice – the UK appears to be one of the only Western countries in which the USA version of The Voice hasn’t aired. We did our own take on the format, though, and it was a moderate success.
• The X Factor – Simon Cowell’s association with ITV dictated that the US version of our format would be broadcast on their network, just like the original UK series; it’s been a qualified hit, and at the very least is holding up better than American Idol at this stage.

The ‘dragons’ of the UK’s “Dragons’ Den”, a marginally more-refined Shark Tank.

Newsmagazines

There’s little demand for this kind of magazine material from the States; we make more than enough ourselves, as I will discuss in a future column. American newsmagazines barely have a presence anywhere on British schedules:

• 60 Minutes – I thought this wasn’t broadcast over here, but barely-watched pay-TV channel CBS Reality broadcasts it in the wee small hours. Viewership: vanishingly small (we’re talking four digits, max).
• Dateline NBC – Not broadcast here.
• Primetime – Not broadcast here.
• Rock Center with Brian Williams – Again, nope. No Briton knows who Brian Williams is. True story.

Comedy

I’ve discussed comedy in-depth before here. The general conclusion? There’s not a whole lot of room on British schedules for US comedy, and that goes doubly for the most-viewed channels and timeslots. Most make the cut for UK broadcast in some form or other – hipper shows hit E4, traditional and/or trashier shows usually go to Comedy Central UK, channels largely dedicated to imported material – but few are unqualified successes. Here’s the detail:

• 1600 Penn – not yet acquired by any UK broadcaster. Given the US ratings, they’d be pretty foolish to now.
• 2 Broke Girls – one of few US sitcoms genuinely successful on UK TV at the moment, 2 Broke Girls has benefited from thorough marketing and a strong lead-in (typically How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory) to become one of its home network’s more popular shows, sitting neatly alongside E4’s other light comedy offerings, both imported and home-grown
• 30 Rock – originally a failure on free-to-air Channel 5, it’s gained a more consistent home in pay-TV channel Comedy Central UK, but it’s far from popular, typically airing in relatively late slots and garnering below-average ratings. Too American-industry-centric? Or audiences having no taste? I’ll let you decide.
• Animal Practice – picked up by ITV2 last summer. They expected it to be a huge hit Stateside; it, of course, was not, and they are now lumbered with a poor sitcom doomed to cancellation. It hasn’t fared much better here, despite a lot of ads.
• Animation Domination – I discussed Fox’s animated lineup in depth here; suffice to say, they’re largely successful here
• Ben & Kate – Picked up by ITV2, alongside Animal Practice. Also ill-fated. Its success here is irrelevant. (It’s done OK, for the record.)
• The Big Bang Theory – the show that comes closest to recapturing the glory days of Friends being a hit, The Big Bang Theory is certainly the most popular current American sitcom in Britain, new episodes routinely ranking number one for the week on E4 by a large margin. Its success here replicates its Stateside performance, albeit on a rather smaller scale; it’s especially impressive given Chuck Lorre’s previously-iffy track record here (Two and a Half Men not having an especially notable UK fanbase). Definitely a case of lightning striking in the correct place.
• Community – season 1 bombed ut with zero promo on little-seen channel Viva; season two, even worse, on ridiculously under-viewed Sony Entertainment TV, whose top-rated shows peak at five figures. The show’s owned by Sony too though, so season 3 will probably make it over here eventually, long after fans have torrented season 4.
• Don’t Trust the B— in Apt 23 – US sitcom home E4 have it, it’s done aceptably, though its doomed fate appears to be sealed after a miserable second-season performance in the US.
• Go On – no UK broadcaster yet. Given its ratings slide, and comparisons to UK non-starters like Community, it might not ever see the light of day here.
• Guys With Kids – not picked up yet.
• Happy Endings – it’s performing reasonably on (you guessed it) E4, though that may be partially down to cushy lead-ins like New Girl and How I Met Your Mother
• How I Met Your Mother – second-in-command to the good ship Big Bang, How I Met Your Mother has hit the mainstream here, after a pushy marketing campaign comparing it to Friends from E4. Prior to that, the show was languishing in little-watched timeslots on pay cable, so it’s a great example of marketing playing a key role in a US show’s success here. The Friends comparisons worked well, that show being by far the most familiar – and well-liked – American sitcom to Britons.
• Last Man Standing – nabbed by Sky1, given early prime slots characteristicof the kind of position Home Improvement used to be slotted into (stripped across weekdays, 5 or 6pm), not great ratings, unsurprisingly.
• Malibu Country – not picked up for the UK yet. Reba isn’t really a thing here, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it never makes the transatlantic journey.
• The Middle – paired with Modern Family by Sky1; it’s been a pretty successful bet, much as in the USA on ABC, and both are delivering solid numbers for the statin, roughly on a par with new episodes of The Simpsons. I suspect Sky1 are hoping The Middle will be a relatively family-friendly mainstay in the same way Malcolm in the Middle was for much of the last decade, a utility player able to occupy daytime and early primetime slots whenever necessary.
• Mike and Molly – Comedy Central UK have it, it does OK for the pay-cable channel but poorly compared to The Big Bang Theory (around 1/12 of the viewership) and is often handily outrated by repeats of Friends on the same network.
• The Mindy Project – picked up by E4, but not yet aired. It’s probably a sensible acquisition, and is likely to do OK sat alongside Big Bang, HIMYM and New Girl.
• Modern Family – see The Middle, above; a strong performer, originally buoyed by a Simpsons lead-in and now a strong standalone performer.
• The Neighbors – not picked up here yet, and it’s hard to say if it will be at this stage.
• New Girl – a solid hit on E4, sits well as a happy medium between the more traditional Big Bang and HIMYM and the hipper, younger Happy Endings and Ben & Kate
• The New Normal – oh look, another E4 acquisition! It’s doing OK, nowhere near Big Bang Theory but comparable to a number of other US sitcoms on the channel. It’s safe there for now.
• The Office – nowhere near as popular here as the original UK version was. It spent a few seasons pulling in mediocre ratings on ITV2, now it pulls in proportionately stronger ratings on Comedy Central UK, but it’s still a million miles from being a hit.
• Parks and Recreation – still hasn’t been broadcast here – not that surprising, as it’s not hip enough to fit in on E4 and too charming for Comedy Central UK. However, BBC4 have apparently acquired it, and will be broadcasting it from the start next month. BBC4 is basically an arthouse channel, in tone and reach – vaguely akin to IFC in the US – so it should be safe here even if the figures are poor. Which they will be, as anyone interested will have imported the DVDs yonks ago. (They’re on my bedroom shelf right now.)
• Partners – not aired over here, and given its swift cancellation, never will be.
• Raising Hope – in the same vein as The Middle and Malcolm in the Middle before it, Sky1 have nurtured Raising Hope to become a solid success here, garnering decent numbers and slotting happily into daytime and early primetime, alongside The Simpsons and Modern Family
• Rules of Engagement – Another that belongs to E4. This one’s a little different, though, in that it stays away from primetime, typically being used as afternoon and early-morning filler; much as in the US, it never quite lives up to its brethren in the ratings, but it’s a consistent enough performer as to not discard it entirely.
• Suburgatory – well I’ll be, E4 again. Ratings-wise, it’s been OK; speaking anecdotally, this hasn’t gained a whole lot of buzz here, but the great potential for scheduling – E4 also have the rights to Revenge here, as well as multitudes of other single-camera sitcoms I’ve mentioned – suggests they’ll hold on to it for a while.
• Two and a Half Men – never anywhere near as big a hit here as in the US. Trod water for a while on free-to-air Channel 5, before finding a more appropriate home over at Comedy Central UK, where an alright number of viewers show up. It’s by no means a household name of a show here, though, and its disappointing results here remain one of the bigger UK programming questions
• Up All Night – the third of ITV2’s unlucky triumvirate, joining Animal Practice and Ben and Kate in the ‘poorly-chosen pickups’ category. Up All Night has performed worst of the three, it having just been replaced by additional Ben and Kate episodes this past week. Given the absurd situation its currently in Stateside – facing retool upon retool – it’s probably never coming back to ITv2.
• Whitney – shown by Comedy Central UK; it does acceptable numbers, but as with Mike and Molly, those Friends repeat numbers show it up somewhat.

Breakdown by broadcaster. Free-to-air youth-targeted E4 dominates, with pay-TV Comedy Central UK and Sky1 not far behind.

Next week, it’s on to the dramas; following that, I’ll be starting a multi-part look at the vast swathes of British primetime not comprised of American telly: the soaps, sports and mini-series that dominate the most prestigious timeslots on our airwaves. (Spoiler alert: it’s not all roses.)

More from the week that was:

• Corporate synergy, anyone? Rupert Murdoch teams up with Walt Disney for British movie channel Sky Movies Disney. Lovely. It’ll be exclusive to Sky satellite TV subscribers, and will premiere Disney movies six months following their UK cinema release, with a 12-month exclusivity period.

• At the cinema, Britons turned out to see the latest Die Hard movie in good numbers: it narrowly nabbed the number one slot, ahead of fantastically-performing holdover Wreck-It Ralph. Beautiful Creatures got off to a better start here than in the USA – its £1.1m take here is around 80% more than might have been expected based on the US’ woeful $6m start – clearly Twilight-loving audiences turned out in full force here. This is 40 also did OK here: with £1.1m from its first weekend, it’s behind other Apatow movies, but that’s hardly surprising, given muted promotion and mixed reviews. (I liked it, though!) More details over at expert Charles Gant’s Guardian column.

• This weekend, Mama and Cloud Atlas are the major US titles making a saturation appearance at multiplexes across the land. The latter has faced one of the longer US-UK release gaps in recent memory – four months – presumably to avoid being lost in the awards glut of January. Alongside them will be arthouse-troubler To the Wonder and British oldie-weepie Song for Marion.

• Another week without an American new entry in the albums top 40. Cor blimey, as we Brits would definitely not say. The singles chart is a different story, as Baauer‘s “Harlem Shake” makes the top 10. The new Bruno Mars song is also in the top 10 (and his previous single is still in the top 30); Justin Timberlake‘s latest has had an inauspicious #28 debut. Despite being a combination of acts us Brits love, Pink and Nate Ruess (of fun.) has as yet only made #24, though a climb is possible. Rihanna‘s “Stay” is still in the top 4 after three months on release, impressively; we do love her.

• At the BRIT awards (the British music industry awards), Lana Del Rey won “international female solo artist” (we do love her), the Black Keys won “international group”, and Frank Ocean won “international male solo artist”, beating my teacher, mother and secret lover Bruce Springsteen in the process.

• The Walking Dead returned on Friday, with 346k tuning in for the first episode of the second half of season three. That’s down a little from the first-half-season average, but not concerningly so. They’re good numbers for its pay-TV home, FOX UK, but in the grand scheme of things still relatively unimpressive; far stronger numbers will be seen upon its free-to-air bow on Channel 5 later in the year.

• 666 Park Avenue began here on Tuesday with around 500,000 viewers: pretty good for ITV2.