HIT FORMAT TRAVELS TO FRANCE AS LOCAL VERSIONS ENJOY CONTINUED SUCCESS GLOBALLY
CANNES – 12th October 2026 – It was announced today that the international global juggernaut Taskmaster has been confirmed for yet another new country as TF1 commissions a local version of the hit comedy entertainment format for audiences across France and the wider French speaking market. Meanwhile, international versions of the show enjoy multiple successful launches in all-new territories, making it the third top traveling television format today as more countries than ever are signing up to have their own version of Taskmaster.
Hosted by French star Camille Combal and Produced by 1367 Productions, the primetime 6’60 series is in production in France and slated to launch in 2027. This marks the latest territory to join the 15 others around the world who have created their own version of Taskmaster, with over 100 series and 1000 hours of the format now produced around the world.
Alex Horne, the format’s creator and host of UK original said: “I am extremely excited about this iteration of Taskmaster, mainly because I really like Taskmaster (I think it’s a great format). I try to see it live wherever it is made and it turns out France is a lot easier to get to than New Zealand. So I can’t wait to see the worryingly handsome Camille slip on my shiny shoes and undermine the French comedy scene’s finest”.
Julien Degroote, EVP Content Development, TF1 Group said: “We are incredibly excited — and, I have to admit, a little daunted — to bring Taskmaster to France. It’s more than a hit format: it’s a true comedy institution, with a unique spirit and a passionate fanbase around the world. Our recent successes have confirmed something we strongly believe at TF1: audiences want to laugh, have fun and share joyful moments together. Taskmaster delivers exactly that. And Camille Combal is the perfect person to bring it to life in France. He’s much more than a TV host — he’s a true entertainer, with the humour, creativity and sense of play this extraordinary format demands. We now have one simple task: to make the French version worthy of Taskmaster. No pressure!”
Paula Warwick, Head of Distribution at Avalon said: “France is the latest market to join what has been an extraordinary year for Taskmaster internationally. With deals in seven new territories alone in 2026, Taskmaster is now the third most-travelled format globally this year. To have TF1, one of Europe’s biggest and most respected commercial broadcasters, coming on board, is a real testament to Taskmaster’s continued international momentum”.
Elsewhere, successful new launches for Taskmaster in 2026 include RTL4 in the Netherlands, consolidating with over a million viewers, and Poland for TVN which saw the channel’s highest primetime launch for five years. It’s already in production for series 2 which will air next year, while local versions in Estonia and Iceland have also been recommissioned following successful debuts earlier this year.
Taskmaster’s remarkable growth in global footprint in 2026 is built on over a decade of international success, as one of the most recommissioned comedy entertainment formats of all time. The UK original has been commissioned through to series 27 with Channel 4, while Sweden and Norway both launch series 13 this year, Demark is launching series 11, Finland, New Zealand and Portugal each have seven series, with Portugal celebrating winning Best Entertainment Programme at the prestigious Globos de Ouro, Portugal’s version of the Golden Globes, in September, while both Australia and French Canada are commissioned through to series six.
The British original continues to flourish globally. The show is reaching its biggest ever audience on the official YouTube Channel, with over 1.7 billion views and counting, making it the biggest British comedy show on YouTube, while the show’s extensive catalogue can now be streamed on Hulu in the U.S., and Disney+ and Netflix in the UK along with Channel 4. The overwhelming popularity of the show in the U.S. has seen an 85% increase in North American viewership year on year, with over 215 million views from North America so far this year. The growing fanbase in America has led to Alex Horne & Greg Davies announcing a special performance of ‘Taskmaster Live on Stage’ at the iconic 18,000 capacity Hollywood Bowl in 2027.
WHAT THE PRESS HAVE SAID:
“Taskmaster” has long been one of my favorite shows… In addition to being silly and enchanting, “Taskmaster” is breathtakingly novel: I’m amazed by its capacity to remain unpredictable to both its viewers and its participants… [its] among the best of the best”
Margaret Lyons, The New York Times
“The hottest comedy television show on the planet”
Julia Llewellyn Smith, The Sunday Times
“one of the planet’s most consistently funny TV shows”
William Hughes, AV Club
“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 Taskmas-ter”
Chris Karnadi, The Atlantic
“the most imaginative thing on TV”
Isobel Lewis, The i
THE 19 BEST TV SHOWS OF 2025 “Find out why this is the show all the most discerning comedy fans in your life are obsessed with: You’ve never seen so many smart performers acting so silly”
Tara Araino, Vanity Fair
“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
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 se-ries of strange and surreal challenges in what is the most hard-fought and ridiculous comedy entertain-ment format on TV.
• 224 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, Taskmas-ter 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 epi-sode [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 Enter-tainment Craft at the 2025 BAFTAs, and Best Comedy Entertainment at the Rose D’Or Awards 2024. Previ-ously 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 nomi-nated 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 Broad-cast 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 93 seasons and 921 episodes have been commissioned outside the UK with local versions now in Aus-tralia, Canada, New Zealand, Croatia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands, Poland 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 pro-duction 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 reaching ratings of over a 65% mar-ket share in a primetime weekend slot with series 14 and 15 in production for TV4, produced by Avalon Television with Fremantle. 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 Warner Bros Discovery. Finland’s version of Taskmaster, Suurmestari, won Game Show of the Year at the Venla Gala 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 tenth series, won Best Game Show at the 2022 Vindere Awards making it their most suc-cessful 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 15.5 billion impressions since it first launched in October 2019, with just over 1.8 billion views and over 2.3 million subscribers. The channel has had over 336 million hours’ worth of content viewed with 47% of those hours from North America (190 million hours watched). The show has grown significantly in popularity with American audiences throughout 2025. There has been an 31% increase in North American viewership year on year, with over 188 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, while series 21 of the hit show saw an increase in viewership internation-ally and saw a 41% increase in impressions from North America compared to the previous series, with 7.6 million hours watched so far on the official YouTube channel, contributing to the 336 million hours viewed and 2.3 million subscribers and counting on the channel. The channel to date has passed 1.7 billion views.
• 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, www.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 curricu-lum-based or more focused on social and emotional development. Taskmaster Club launched in Septem-ber 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 regis-tered to date on taskmastereducation.com.
• Taskmaster recently collaborated with Great Ormand Street Hospital with the first ever Taskmaster livestream event which invited content creators and influencers with a combined social following of over 117million to be the contestants. The event raised over £277,000 (and counting) for the new cancer centre at the hospital. Taskmaster also works 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 do-nated 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
