LONDON – Date: 14th April 2026 – The international hit tv format Taskmaster has been confirmed for a new local series in Poland for TVN with their very own Taskmaster Polska, while Sweden and Norway renew their primetime hit local originals, and Portugal’s version reached record breaking viewing figures for RTP. Brand new local adaptations of Taskmaster launched in Iceland and Estonia, with The Netherlands launching soon, meaning that local productions of BAFTA and Rose D’Or winning format will now broadcast in 14 countries, continuing Taskmaster’s growing popularity across the globe.
Audiences in Poland will see their very own production of Taskmaster as TVN have picked up the format, produced by Avalon partnering with Constantin.
Alex Horne, the format’s creator and host of UK original said: “I think this has got a bit out of control, to be honest. But I am still thrilled that the people of Poland are finally going to see their top comedians casting dignity to one side as they strive to impress the Polish version of Greg Davies”.
Paula Warwick, Head of Distribution at Avalon said: “We’re thrilled to be partnering with TVN and Constantin to bring Taskmaster to Poland. The strength of the format and its ability to deliver guaranteed comedy have driven its dedicated global following, and we can’t wait to bring it to Polish audiences. With more territories coming on board this year, its global expansion shows no signs of slowing”
Elsewhere, TV4 in Sweden is in production for series 14 and 15 of Taskmaster Sweden (Bäst i Test), produced by Avalon with Fremantle. Warner Bros Discovery in Norway has confirmed a renewal for their show Kongen Befaler, with its twelfth series in production with Avalon and Nordisk and where it has established itself as major primetime show, winning the Norwegian TV Academy Award (Gullruten) for Best Comedy Show in 2024. Meanwhile, Taskmaster Denmark (Stormester), is in its tenth series on TV2 and won Best Entertainment Show at TV Prisen last month.
RTP in Portugal is also being met with huge success with their seventh series of Taskmaster Portugal currently on air. Their sixth series reached a 21.4% audience share, making it the programme’s most watched season and number 1 in its prime-time slot. On RTP Play, this season saw a huge jump with a 30% increase in plays and a 34% increase in total users.
With 14 local originals currently broadcasting around the world, a debut series for Taskmaster Iceland aired on 13th March on Syn, and Taskmaster Estonia (Kuninga Käsul) on 8th March on TV3, while The Netherlands will see their very first version of Taskmaster Netherlands set to air later this year on RTL.
WHAT THE PRESS HAVE SAID:
“The hottest comedy television show on the planet”
Julia Llewellyn Smith, The Sunday Times
“One of British TV’s biggest success stories… Taskmaster conquered the world”
Rachael Healy, The Observer
“One of the reasons Taskmaster is so good is also one of the reasons it is hard to describe to people in a profound way. That is, it’s extremely silly… join me in the call for a Taskmaster Australia. Your time starts now”
Rebecca Shaw, Guardian Australia
“Taskmaster has risen from a strange little British comedy show to becoming a global cult phenomenon”
Jeremy Fuster, The Wrap
“Taskmaster is miraculous. It deserves to be carried through the streets in a sedan chair”
Stuart Heritage, The Guardian
“uniquely hilarious”
Brent Furdyk, ET Canada
“Imagine “The Great British Bake Off” with fangs. That’s the appeal of “Taskmaster,” a truly singular British comedy competition series”
Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times
“The king of celebrity reality TV…. No one does that task better than Taskmaster.”
Killian Faith-Kelly, GQ
“an electric blend of hilarious energy… Just watch it, because it’s the funniest television I’ve seen in years”
Christian D’Andrea, USA Today
“It’s official, Taskmaster has gone global and deservedly so. Ever since this silly show’s incarnation in a hidden corner of British telly, it has been a consistent hour of pure, bonkers joy”
Sara Wallis, Daily Mirror
“[The show’s] simple premise has achieved immense popularity… This, in all of its weirdness, is the magic of Taskmaster”
Chris Karnadi, The Atlantic
“the most imaginative thing on TV”
Isobel Lewis, The i
“One of the most consistently entertaining comedy game shows on air these days”
Clare Martin, Paste Magazine
“Taskmaster NZ starts high in the sky – and long may it continue”
Steward Sowman-Lund, The Spin Off
“TV’s craziest and most consistently funny panel show”
James Croot, Stuff NZ
“the ultimate laugh-out-loud competition”
Scoop
For more information contact:
Avalon: Florrie Sheehan, fsheehan@avalonuk.com
Dan Lloyd, dlloyd@avalonuk.com
US Publicity Team: Taskmaster@42west.com
Notes to Editors
About Taskmaster:
- Taskmaster is a BAFTA and Rose d’Or winning and International Emmy nominated comedy entertainment show originally created by Alex Horne. Greg Davies stars as the all-powerful “Taskmaster” who, with the help of his loyal assistant Horne, sets out to test the wiles, wit and wisdom of five comedians through a series of strange and surreal challenges in what is the most hard-fought and ridiculous comedy entertainment format on TV.
- 209 episodes have been produced in the UK so far, as part of a landmark six season deal with Channel 4 in 2020, which was renewed for a further six series by the broadcaster along with a brand-new spin off series Junior Taskmaster, following nine record-breaking series on UKTV’s Dave.
- Taskmaster has triumphed as one of Channel 4’s most popular programmes in recent years, Taskmaster is already watched by a broad multi-generational audience and is in Channel 4’s top three series of audience share of young viewers (16-34) in the coveted 9pm slot, with Gogglebox and Derry Girls. Taskmaster is also hugely popular on Channel 4’s streaming service, with the average views per episode [0-7Days, O&O] growing since 2021. Taskmaster is also hugely popular on Channel 4 streaming, where it is available for free and, since 2021, the average views per episode [0-7Days, O+O] have grown for the title with each series. Taskmaster is one of the youngest skewing shows on Channel 4, with nearly a quarter of its audience last year aged 16-34, across both linear and streaming. Across 2024 Taskmaster was in the top 5 most streamed shows on Channel 4, for all individuals.
- Taskmaster has recently received its second nomination for Best Comedy Entertainment Programme at the RTS Awards 2026, following a fifth BAFTA nomination for the 2025 awards and was crowned Best Entertainment Craft at the 2025 BAFTAs, and Best Comedy Entertainment at the Rose D’Or Awards 2024. Previously it has won Best Comedy Entertainment Show at the National Comedy Awards 2022 and 2023, Best Comedy Entertainment at the BAFTAs 2020 and Best Entertainment Programme at the Broadcast Awards 2018, having previously received two more nominations for the Broadcast Awards. It has also been nominated for the Bruce Forsyth Entertainment Award at the NTA’s 2021 and 2022, Best Comedy Entertainment at Rose d’Or 2023, Studio Entertainment at Rose d’Or 2021, Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, the Broadcast Digital Awards, Edinburgh TV Award, the TV Choice Awards, Best Returning Format in the International Format Awards 2020, and received two BAFTA Craft nominations in 2023 and 2025. While it’s spin of series Junior Taskmaster took home the prize for Best Comedy Entertainment Programme at the Royal Television Society Awards 2025.
- The original Taskmaster programme can now be seen in 120 countries
- Over 92 seasons and 921 episodes have been commissioned outside the UK with local versions now in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Croatia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Portugal where it ranked first for most watched entertainment programs on its channel RTP 1. Taskmaster Australia launched on Network Ten where it became the channel’s top new show of the year and received a nomination for Most Outstanding Comedy at the Logies, produced by Avalon Television with Kevin&Co and featuring Tom Gleeson as the Taskmaster with Tom Cashman as the Taskmaster’s Assistant, and Taskmaster New Zealand series six launched on TVNZ in 2025, while it previously won Best Entertainment Show at the NZ TV Awards. The first season of Le Maitre du Jeu for Bell Media, which aired in Canada in September 2022, increased Noovo’s performance in the Thursday time slot by 50%, while it is now in production for series four. The UK original won Canada’s film and TV Rockie Awards 2023 for Best Comedy and Variety show.
- The format has seen huge success in Europe, with the Swedish version in production for series 11 and 12 for TV4, produced by Avalon Television with Baluba. Norway’s local version of Taskmaster, Kongen Befaler, won the Norwegian TV Academy Award (Gullruten) for Best Comedy Show in 2024, where a twelfth season is in production for Discovery. Finland’s version of Taskmaster, Suurmestari, won Game Show of the Year at the Venla Gaala awards, with five series aired and six more ordered by MTV3, with the channel also launching the first international version of Junior Taskmaster later this year. Stormester, Denmark’s Taskmaster, which is now in its ninth series, won Best Game Show at the 2022 Vindere Awards making it their most successful comedy entertainment series ever with a 50% share of all viewers, with TV2 launching successful Taskmaster spin off series, ‘Champion of Champions’ in 2023 and ‘One More Chance’ 2024, which achieved an incredible 82% share in the 15-34 demo.
- The Taskmaster YouTube channel has seen huge success internationally, particularly in North America, reaching over 14.4 billion impressions since it first launched in October 2019, with just over 1.4 billion views and over 2.1 million subscribers. The channel has had over 289 million hours’ worth of content viewed with 57% of those hours from North America (168 million hours watched). The show has grown significantly in popularity with American audiences throughout 2025. There has been an 85% increase in North American viewership year on year, with over 174 million views from North America so far this year, while there were 270k new subscribers from North America in 2025 alone, which is three times more than it received for its previous series.
- The Taskmaster book ‘200 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People’ was published in 2018, while a second book ‘Bring Me The Head of the Taskmaster’ was published in September 2021. Both books featured as Sunday Times Bestsellers at launch and were followed by the launch of a brand-new book celebrating the ten year anniversary of Taskmaster; ‘An Absolute Casserole: The Taskmaster Compendium’ which launched in November 2024. Combined they have collectively sold over one million units globally. The Swedish version of the book has sold 108,000 copies to date.
- For the first time, Taskmaster entered the world of virtual reality with a brand-new virtual reality game, Taskmaster VR. Published by Scallywag Arcade, a Draw & Code studio, Taskmaster VR launched in 2024 for Meta Quest 2 and 3.
- The festive season saw the launch of brand-new Taskmaster Crackers which entirely sold out before they hit the shelves at pre-sale. Having currently sold over a quarter of a million crackers to fans across the world, production went into overdrive to meet phenomenal demand in time for Christmas. They became an official No.1 best-seller on Amazon and have been ordered by fans across 58 countries around the globe including in North America, Australia, Thailand, South Korea and Iceland among other countries.
- 2025 has seen the creation and release of a brand-new Taskmaster Advent Calendar, which was the latest festive product for Christmas 2025. Over 15,000 calendars were sold on the first day of pre-orders in July, making it the fastest selling merchandise item in Taskmaster history. It then went on to entirely sell out and was purchased by fans across the globe from the U.S.A., to Italy, Brazil and beyond.
- Taskmaster: The Board Game was released in Autumn 2019 and entirely sold out a week after it went on sale. A second game, Taskmaster: The Secret Series Game was released in 2022. Taskmaster: The Card Game was released also released in 2022. Across the range, over 400,000 games have been sold to date. All the games are available to buy from the official Taskmaster shop, TaskmasterStore.com.
- Taskmaster Education takes elements of the show and uses them to inspire, engage and teach children and young people. Tasks can be adapted to meet a near infinite range of teacher objectives, whether curriculum-based or more focused on social and emotional development. Taskmaster Club launched in September 2023, offering schools across the country the opportunity to host after school clubs that bring Little Alex Horne and the silly joy of Taskmaster into their classrooms. Over 800 schools in the UK have registered to date on com.
- Taskmaster is working with Homeless Link; the national membership charity for frontline homelessness services, creating a virtual Taskmaster at Home event with all the money raised going to homeless charities across the UK. Having raised over £125,000, more information on the virtual event can be found here.
- For the first time ever, fans could step into the shoes of their favourite comedians and complete tasks themselves with Taskmaster: The Live Experience. The launch of the brand-new interactive adventure saw it receive rave reviews, selected as one of Time Out’s ‘Top London Comedy Shows to See’, and Metro’s ‘best adventures to be had in London’. The most ludicrous experience in London extended its run well into 2025 to keep up with demand for tickets.
- In a bid to make studio tickets fairer to get for fans, Taskmaster now sell guaranteed entry tickets to see the show being recorded. All proceeds (excluding ticketing partner’s fees and VAT) will be donated to three charities handpicked by Alex and Greg: Slough Homeless Our Concern, Thames Valley Adventure Playground, and LOROS Hospice. You can sign up to the mailing list to be the first to hear about upcoming ticket releases.
Taskmaster can be watched on:
TaskmasterSuperMax+
Taskmaster YouTube Channel
Channel 4 / All 4
iTunes
Google
Amazon
Microsoft
About Avalon:
Avalon is a multi-award-winning talent management, television production and live promotion group with offices in London, Los Angeles and New York. Avalon, Artists Rights Group and The Agency together represent a diverse and distinctive roster of artists including actors, comedians, writers and directors, among them Academy Award, BAFTA, Emmy, Tony and Olivier Award-winners.
Avalon is the UK’s largest independent television production company, with over 40 shows in production in the last year including: hit entertainment format Taskmaster (Channel 4 in the UK, Network 10 in Australia, TV4 in Sweden, TVNorge/Discovery+ in Norway); multi-Emmy award winning Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO); Not Going Out (BBC), the UK’s longest running sitcom on air; Tall Tales & Murder (BBC/RTE), a highly anticipated darkly comedic crime drama; upcoming live-action, sketch comedy series The Terrors of Jordan Mendoza (Adult Swim); a brand new series of the iconic satirical puppet show Spitting Image: The Rest is Bulls*!t (YouTube) and Dogs Behaving (Very) Badly (Channel 5 in the UK, Network 10 in Australia). Avalon has produced over 4,000 episodes of programming for audiences in the UK, US and around the world, winning 39 Emmy Awards and BAFTAs from 100+ nominations.
Other landmark Avalon shows include Catastrophe (Amazon/Channel 4), Breeders (FX/Sky), Starstruck (HBO Max/BBC), Flatbush Misdemeanors (Showtime), Workaholics (Comedy Central), The Russell Howard Hour (Sky), TV Burp (ITV) and Fantasy Football League (BBC/ITV/Sky). Avalon has also produced over 60 comedy specials for various platforms including Amazon, HBO, Netflix and Sky, as well as numerous podcasts and radio shows, including over 300 episodes of the record-breaking, arena-touring podcast, Shagged. Married. Annoyed. with Chris & Rosie Ramsey. Avalon’s dedicated distribution arm licenses its catalogue of programmes and formats to over 200 territories worldwide.
Avalon also produces and promotes live comedy around the world and has promoted more winners and nominees of the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award than any other company. Avalon produced Newman and Baddiel: Live at Wembley, the UK’s first arena comedy show, Jerry Springer: The Opera, winner of four Olivier Awards, and is currently producing the Tony and Olivier award-winning musical, Operation Mincemeat in the West End and on Broadway.
For Avalon news visit: www.avalonuk.com/press or follow @avalonent
