{"id":13098,"date":"2024-03-29T11:27:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-29T11:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/29\/tvs-saviors-are-here-and-theyre-wearing-spandex\/"},"modified":"2024-03-29T11:27:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T11:27:16","slug":"tvs-saviors-are-here-and-theyre-wearing-spandex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/29\/tvs-saviors-are-here-and-theyre-wearing-spandex\/","title":{"rendered":"TV\u2019s Saviors Are Here, and They\u2019re Wearing Spandex"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/29\/multimedia\/29gladiators-qjkf\/29gladiators-qjkf-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"TV\u2019s Saviors Are Here, and They\u2019re Wearing Spandex\" title=\"TV\u2019s Saviors Are Here, and They\u2019re Wearing Spandex\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">First it was the streamers: the seismic arrival of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and the rest, offering television\u2019s previously captive viewers the chance to watch seemingly whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Then TikTok joined YouTube in conclusively shattering what was once a unified small-screen audience into a billion individual fragments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On both sides of the Atlantic, ratings plummeted. Viewers drifted away. Advertising revenue collapsed, and budgets followed. For much of the last decade, it has felt like the traditional television industry has been running up a steeply-inclined treadmill, legs pumping and lungs heaving as the ground moves rapidly beneath its feet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, in Britain, a group of bodybuilders, personal trainers and sundry gym rats have stepped unto the breach. Squeezed into tightfitting Lycra costumes, they have been wielding oversized pugil sticks, running around floating scaffolds and chasing only slightly less musclebound members of the public up walls, in front of a cheering crowd.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In much the same format that first graced American screens in 1989 and British sets in 1992 \u2014 \u201cregular\u201d contestants compete in a variety of outlandish challenges against specialist, intimidating athletes each week \u2014 \u201cGladiators\u201d has, in the year 2024, not only provided the BBC with an invigorating hit, but has also offered the latest sign that so-called \u201clinear television\u201d might be <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2022\/02\/01\/arts\/television\/bbc-three-streaming-broadcast.html\" title=\"\">more resilient than previously thought<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even in an instant, on-demand media landscape, the idea that people would sit down to watch something \u2014 on a television set, at a scheduled time, with other people in the room \u2014 has been regaining some ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">According to the BBC, 9.8 million people have watched the first episode of the British \u201cGladiators\u201d reboot, which first aired in January. More striking, though, is that the vast majority of those viewers did not see it at their convenience. Instead, the broadcaster says, 6.6 million \u2014 10 percent of the British population \u2014 sat down to follow it as it went out.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI was really shocked by that,\u201d said Kalpna Patel-Knight, the BBC\u2019s head of entertainment commissioning. \u201cYou don\u2019t really get those figures at that time any more.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That audience has held relatively steady over the course of the show\u2019s run \u2014 episodes in early March were attracting consolidated figures, measured over a week, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.barb.co.uk\/viewing-data\/most-viewed-programmes\/\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">of around 5.5 million<\/a> \u2014 but the final, which airs Saturday, is expected to provide another spike. The BBC has already ordered a second season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Both the broadcaster and Hungry Bear, the show\u2019s production company, felt the format fitted with the zeitgeist. Dan Baldwin, Hungry Bear\u2019s managing director, pointed out that the Gladiators \u2014 with names like Nitro and Sabre \u2014 tap into both the popularity of gym culture and of superhero franchises.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe fitness world has never been bigger,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t walk down the street without seeing people in Gymshark or Lululemon. At the same time, superheroes, the Marvel films, are huge. \u2018Gladiators\u2019 stands for both of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The show\u2019s staging \u2014 the boisterous arena, the underdog contenders battling the knowingly cartoonish Gladiators, the vivid colors, the dramatic lighting \u2014 all have an obvious appeal to younger viewers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But the crucial ingredient is familiarity. \u201cNostalgia is big business,\u201d Baldwin said. But it is, he added, a dangerous one: Get it wrong and \u201caudiences can be savage. It has to be an evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And so the show\u2019s updates are mild, judicious. There are new challenges, generally a little more spectacular. The Gladiators themselves are slightly more rounded characters, and more diverse than their 1990s forebears (including the first deaf Gladiator). The producers have also borrowed from sports documentaries to introduce \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d shots in the Gladiators\u2019 dressing room.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But, in essence and feel, \u201cGladiators\u201d is much the same show that aired a generation ago. The crowd waves oversized foam fingers. The Gladiators dance to Queen\u2019s \u201cAnother One Bites The Dust\u201d to celebrate a victory.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For older viewers \u2014 parents, grandparents \u2014 the whole production is swaddled in a comforting, familiar glow: family viewing, without intergenerational resentment. \u201cWe wanted to make something that parents did not have to pretend to like,\u201d Baldwin said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That has allowed \u201cGladiators\u201d to access an audience that, according to the BBC\u2019s research, still existed, but was \u201cunderserved,\u201d as Patel-Knight put it: the millions of people who still sit down on Saturday evenings, but have to flick through myriad channels and platforms in hopes of finding something they actually want to watch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Nor is \u201cGladiators\u201d an entirely isolated case in Britain. It started airing just as another BBC hit, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/01\/12\/arts\/television\/the-traitors-us-show.html\" title=\"\">the reality show \u201cThe Traitors,\u201d<\/a> was ending; its finale attracted 8.8 million viewers across linear and on-demand, according to the BBC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt has been an encouraging few months for the industry,\u201d Baldwin said, citing not only the popularity, but also the political impact, of the TV drama \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/01\/10\/world\/europe\/uk-itv-mr-bates-vs-post-office.html\" title=\"\">Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office<\/a>,\u201d as a further example. That show, which was based on a real-life miscarriage of justice, attracted an audience of around 11 million, making it the best performing drama since 2017 on ITV, the station that aired it. It even prompted Britain\u2019s lawmakers to introduce new legislation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">This all runs contrary to the common consensus that linear television long ago slipped into a state of near obsolescence. But that perception has some basis in fact. \u201cIt is in decline,\u201d said Tom Harrington, the head of television at the research firm Enders Analysis. \u201cViewership numbers are pushed up by older people, who only watch broadcast television, and watch a lot of it.\u201d (In the United States, some broadcast networks have been <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/09\/23\/business\/media\/tv-networks-streaming-boomers.html\" title=\"\">programming their prime-time schedules<\/a> with these erstwhile over-60 viewers in mind.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That decline is not the whole picture, though, Harrington said. \u201cPeople still spend more time watching linear television than they spend doing anything else, except sleep and work,\u201d he said. \u201cIt still commands an enormous amount of attention.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Figures from Ofcom, Britain\u2019s broadcasting watchdog, show that two-thirds of television viewing is still driven by traditional broadcasters, and the majority of that comes from the linear audience. It doesn\u2019t feel that way, Harrington said, perhaps because the shows that attract the most buzz aren\u2019t the ones that attract the most viewers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The greater change, Harrington said, was in the \u201ccommunality\u201d of the experience: We consume more content than ever, but we tend to do it on our own. That means there is less overlap between what young people watch and what older generations do. \u201cThose touch points have been lost,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that means there is a lack of common culture, which is a little bit sad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The audience data suggests that \u201cGladiators\u201d is the \u201ccross-generation\u201d success Patel-Knight hoped it would be. Still, the show might end up being an exceptional fillip in a pattern of decline.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That uncertainty, perhaps, explains the excitement around it, both from outside the industry and inside it. Baldwin said he was asked frequently when a line of \u201cGladiators\u201d-themed merchandise would be available.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There had also been interest from broadcasters and producers across the world in transporting the format to other countries, Baldwin said. \u201cGladiators\u201d has done enough to suggest there is still an audience for traditional, linear television, if only you give the viewers enough pugil sticks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>First it was the streamers: the seismic arrival of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and the rest, offering television\u2019s previously captive viewers the chance to watch seemingly whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Then TikTok joined YouTube in conclusively shattering what was once a unified small-screen audience into a billion individual fragments. On both [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/03\/29\/multimedia\/29gladiators-qjkf\/29gladiators-qjkf-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18546,18547,5746,16792,5231],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13100,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13098\/revisions\/13100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}