London – 6th October 2022 – Continuing the rise of its international success, yet another country joins the growing number of territories creating local versions of Alex Horne’s BAFTA and National Comedy Award winning format Taskmaster. Australia’s Paramount have picked up the rights of the global hit format from Avalon.
Paramount have ordered a series of 10×60’ episodes of ‘Taskmaster Australia’ to be produced by Avalon Television with Kevin & Co for Network 10. Set to air in 2023, the show will be hosted by Tom Gleeson and Tom Cashman.
Isobel Hughes, Director of Distribution, Avalon said: “We’re delighted that Australia will become the next major territory to have its own version of Taskmaster and are thrilled that Paramount are showcasing this fun and highly original format with some excellent talent attached”.
Taskmaster has seen huge success across the globe. The format has been sold to 12 countries with over 300 episodes produced outside the UK. Local versions include ‘Taskmaster New Zealand’ which is now in it’s third series on TVNZ and became an instant hit winning it’s primetime slot. While recently, French speaking Canada’s version ‘Le Maître du Jeu’ premiered in September 2022 where it was a great success, enabling Noovo to increase the performance of its slot by 50%.
In Europe, the format has also been met with huge popularity with the Swedish version ‘Bäst i Test’ winning Programme of the Year at the Kristallen in 2020 and 2019 (Sweden’s TV Academy Awards) and its sixth series for SVT reaching ratings of over a 50% market share in a primetime weekend slot. Norway’s original version of Taskmaster, ‘Kongen Befaler’ won Best Entertainment Show at the prestigious Golden Screen Awards 2020 and won the Norwegian TV Academy Award (Gullruten) for Best Entertainment in 2020, where a total of six seasons have been produced for Discovery. Two new series of ‘Suurmestari’ have been ordered for MTV in Finland after its first episode ranked in the top ten most watched shows in the country, and the sixth series of the Danish version, ‘Stormester’ starts on TV2 next month. The Croatian version of Taskmaster ‘Direktor Svemira’ is set to return for a second series later this year, and Portugal’s local version ranked third for most watched entertainment programs on its channel RTP and was quickly recommissioned for a second series.
In the UK the show has become a mainstay on primetime television with 149 episodes produced in the UK so far as part of a landmark six season deal with Channel 4 in 2020. The show enjoyed its best performance on record with its Channel 4 launch which won the majority share of young viewers 16 – 34’s after the first episode, making it the best-performing new entertainment show of that year. The new series will be produced by Avalon with Kevin & Co, while Executive Producers for Taskmaster are Alex Horne, Richard Allen-Turner, Rob Aslett, James Taylor, Jon Thoday and Andy Devonshire.
ENDS
For more information please contact:
Florrie Sheehan at Avalon – [email protected]
Dan Lloyd at Avalon – [email protected]
Notes to Editors
About Taskmaster
- Taskmaster is a BAFTA 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.
- 149 episodes have been produced in the UK so far, as part of a landmark six season deal with Channel 4 in 2020. Series 10 – 15 air on Channel 4 from Autumn 2020, following nine record-breaking series on UKTV’s Dave.
- The show enjoyed its best performance on record with its Channel 4 launch which reached 3.9 million consolidated views after the first episode, winning the majority share of young viewers 16 – 34’s and making it the best-performing new entertainment show of this year (Broadcast, 2020). Since the programme’s initial launch in 2015 on UKTV’s Dave, Taskmaster’s audience has grown by 80% from series one to series nine.
- Taskmaster was crowned Best Comedy Entertainment Show at the National Comedy Awards 2021, Best Comedy Entertainment at the BAFTAs 2020 and won Best Entertainment Programme at the Broadcast Awards 2018, having previously received two more nominations for both awards. It has also been nominated for the Bruce Forsyth Entertainment Award at the NTA’s 2021 and 2022, Studio Entertainment at Rose d’Or 2021, Best Entertainment Programme at the RTS Awards, Broadcasting Press Guild Awards, the Broadcast Digital Awards, Edinburgh TV Award, the TV Choice Awards, and Best Returning Format in the International Format Awards 2020.
- The original Taskmaster programme has been sold to 94 countries and aired on The CW in the U.S. in 2020.
- Over 300 episodes have been produced outside the UK with local versions now on air across the Nordics, in New Zealand, Croatia and Portugal where it ranked third for most watched entertainment programs on its channel RTP.
- The format has seen huge success in Europe, with the Swedish version winning Programme of the Year at the Kristallen in 2020 and 2019 (Sweden’s TV Academy Awards) and its fifth series for SVT reaching ratings of over a 50% market share in a primetime weekend slot. Norway’s original version of Taskmaster, ‘Kongen Befaler’’s won Best Entertainment Show at the prestigious Golden Screen Awards 2020 and won the Norwegian TV Academy Award (Gullruten) for Best Entertainment in 2020, where a fourth has been commissioned by Discovery. Two new series have been ordered for MTV in Finland after its first episode ranked in the top ten most watched shows in the country, and a fifth series for TV2 in Denmark.
- The Taskmaster YouTube channel has seen huge success internationally, reaching just over 5.2 billion impressions since it first launched in October 2019, with just under half of the channel’s views and over a third of its subscribers originating from the U.S. The channel has had over 76 million hours worth of content viewed with 42% of those hours from the US (31 million hours watched). The show has grown significantly in popularity with U.S. audiences and over the last year there have been total of 56 million views in the last 12 months, while the channel audience has increased by 438% in the USA.
- #HomeTasking had over 100 million impressions across all content on YouTube. Viewing grew by 42%, while subscribers grew by 85% since it launched on the Taskmaster YouTube channel. It was watched in 125 countries with viewers ranging from the US to the UK and from Moldova to Mongolia.
- The Taskmaster Book 200 Extraordinary Tasks for Ordinary People has sold over 148,000 copies, while a second book ‘Bring Me The Head of the Taskmaster’ published in September 2021 and has sold almost 30,000 to date. Both books featured as Sunday Times Bestsellers at launch. The Swedish version of the book has sold 108,000 copies to date.
- A Taskmaster boardgame was released in Autumn 2019 and entirely sold out a week after it went on sale. It has sold almost 180,000 copies to date along with an expansion pack. Both are available to buy on the official Taskmaster shop, TaskmasterStore.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 £115,000, more information on the virtual event can be found here.
- The launch of series 13 also saw the unveiling of the brand new Taskmaster App; a show companion where viewers can watch the show on TV and score along at home, taking on the role of the mighty Taskmaster themselves. The app also features the Taskmaster Academy with quizzes from every series of the show, group and solo tasking games, and a Jukebox featuring all of the music from the show.
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, Artist Rights Group (ARG) and The Agency represent a prolific roster of artists including comedians, actors, presenters, writers and directors. Avalon’s numerous ground-breaking returning television shows currently in production include: Not Going Out (BBC), the UK’s longest running sitcom on air; Taskmaster (Channel 4), the BAFTA-winning hit entertainment format showing in 100 countries; multi Emmy-winner, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO); The Russell Howard Hour (Sky), the network’s most successful entertainment show launch since 2010; Starstruck, a new sitcom from the 2018 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Rose Matafeo (HBO Max/BBC); Flatbush Misdemeanours (Showtime), a new comedy series created by and starring Dan Perlman and Kevin Iso; Breeders, a sitcom starring Martin Freeman and Daisy Haggard (FX/Sky); a new series of the iconic British satirical puppet show, Spitting Image (BritBox UK); and multiple comedy specials for Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max and Netflix.
Other landmark Avalon shows include BAFTA winning and multi Emmy nominated Catastrophe (Amazon Prime Video/Channel 4), Fantasy Football League (BBC/ITV), multi BAFTA-winning TV Burp (ITV), and Workaholics (Comedy Central USA). Avalon also distributes its catalogue of programmes to over 150 countries worldwide. Avalon has produced many globally successful podcasts and is at the top of the UK iTunes chart with the multi-award-winning Shagged. Married. Annoyed by Chris and Rosie Ramsey.
As a leading promoter of live comedy, Avalon produced Newman and Baddiel: Live at Wembley, the UK’s first arena comedy show; Jerry Springer: The Opera, the first West End show to win all four UK ‘Best New Musical’ awards; and has continued to produce and promote live shows globally, as well as promoting more winners and nominees of the prestigious Edinburgh Comedy Award than any other company.
For Avalon news visit: www.avalonuk.com/press or follow @avalonent
