First of all it was a streamer. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, and others have made a shocking debut, giving viewers previously hooked on television the opportunity to watch whatever they want, whenever they want. Then TikTok joined her YouTube, and he decisively shattered the once unified small-screen audience into a billion individual pieces.
Ratings plummeted on both sides of the Atlantic. Viewers turned away. Advertising revenue has fallen, and budgets have followed suit. For much of the past decade, traditional television has felt like running up a steep treadmill, legs pumping and lungs pounding as the ground beneath your feet moves rapidly.
Now, in the UK, a group of bodybuilders, personal trainers and gym rats have stepped into this incursion. Wearing tight-fitting Lycra costumes, they brandished oversized poles, ran around on floating scaffolding and chased weaker members of the public up walls in front of cheering crowds.
In much the same format that first hit American screens in 1989 and hit British sets in 1992, “regular” contestants compete weekly against expert and intimidating athletes in a variety of outlandish challenges. We will compete. “Gladiator'' was a refreshing hit for the BBC in 2024, but it also offered the latest sign that so-called “linear television'' may be more resilient than previously thought.
Even in an instant, on-demand media environment, the idea that people sit and watch something — at a scheduled time, on a TV with other people in the room — is regaining some ground. be.
According to the BBC, 9.8 million people watched the first episode of the UK reboot of Gladiator, which first aired in January. But what's even more surprising is that the majority of viewers didn't watch it on their own terms. Instead, 6.6 million people, 10 per cent of Britain's population, sat down and followed the sounds, the broadcaster said.
“We were really shocked by that,” said Kalpuna Patelnight, the BBC's head of entertainment commissioning. “We don’t really know the numbers from back then anymore.”
Viewership has remained relatively stable over the show's run, with an episode in early March drawing a total of about 5.5 million viewers, measured over the course of a week, but it is expected to spike even further for the final episode, which airs on Saturday. It is expected. The BBC has already ordered a second season.
Both the broadcaster and the show's production company, Hungry Bear, felt the format fit the zeitgeist. Hungry Bear managing director Dan Baldwin pointed out that Gladiator, with names like Nitro and Saber, capitalizes on the popularity of both gym culture and superhero series.
“The world of fitness has never been bigger,” he said. “You can't walk down the street without seeing Gymshark or Lululemon people. At the same time, superheroes in Marvel movies are huge. 'Gladiator' represents both. ”
The show's production, the noisy arena, the underdog candidates battling cartoonish gladiators, the bright colors and dramatic lighting all have obvious appeal to young viewers.
But the key factor is familiarity. “Nostalgia is big business,” Baldwin said. But it's dangerous, he added. “If you get it wrong, the audience can become savage. It has to be an evolution.”
That's why the show's updates are gentle and thoughtful. There will be new challenges and they will generally be a little more spectacular. The Gladiators themselves are slightly more rounded characters and more diverse than their 1990s ancestors (including the first deaf Gladiator). Producers also borrowed from sports documentaries to introduce “behind the scenes” shots of the gladiators' locker rooms.
But at its core, “Gladiator” is pretty much the same show that was on the air a generation ago. The crowd waves oversized foam fingers. The gladiators celebrate their victory by dancing to Queen's “Another One Bites the Dust.”
For older viewers, such as parents and grandparents, the entire film has a comforting, familiar glow that can be watched as a family without any generational resentment. “We wanted to create something that parents didn't have to pretend they liked,” Baldwin said.
This, according to the BBC's research, means that “Gladiator” is reaching a still-existing but “underserved” audience, in Patel-Knight's words: But now you have access to millions of viewers who are sitting but have to flick through. We watch through countless channels and platforms trying to find what we actually want to watch.
Nor is “Gladiator'' a completely isolated case in Britain. The show began airing just as another hit BBC reality show, The Traitors, ended. The final episode drew 8.8 million viewers on linear and on-demand, according to the BBC.
“It's been an encouraging few months for the industry,” Baldwin said, citing not only the popularity of “Mr. Martin,” but also its political influence. Bates v. Post Office'' is a further example. The show, which is based on a real-life miscarriage of justice, attracted around 11 million viewers and became ITV's highest-grossing drama since 2017. This has also prompted British MPs to introduce new legislation.
All of this flies in the face of the common belief that terrestrial television long ago fell into a state of near obsolescence. However, there is actually a basis for this perception. “Television is in decline,” said Tom Harrington, head of television at research firm Enders Analysis. He said: “Older people who only watch broadcast TV are driving up viewership, and they watch a lot of TV.” (In the United States, some broadcast networks organize their prime-time schedules with the former 60+ audience in mind.)
But that decline isn't the whole story, Harrington said. “People still spend more time watching terrestrial television than they do doing anything else except sleeping and working,” he said. “It still gets a lot of attention.”
Statistics from Britain's broadcasting watchdog Ofcom show that traditional broadcasters still account for two-thirds of TV viewing, with the majority coming from linear viewers. Harrington said it doesn't feel that way. Perhaps it's because the most talked about shows aren't the ones that attract the most viewers.
The bigger change, Harrington said, is in the “communal nature” of the experience. We consume more content than ever before, but we tend to do it on our own. This means there will be less overlap between what young people see and what older generations see. “Those touch points are missing,” he said. “It means there is a lack of common culture, which is a little sad.”
Viewer data shows Gladiators is the “generational” success Patel-Knight had hoped for. Still, this show could be an exceptional phillip in a pattern of decline.
Perhaps that uncertainty explains the excitement from both outside and within the industry. Baldwin said he is frequently asked when the “Gladiator” themed product line will be released.
Baldwin said there was also interest from broadcasters and producers around the world in transporting the format to other countries. “Gladiator” did enough to suggest that there was still an audience for traditional linear television, as long as it gave viewers enough of a nail in the coffin.