Laugh’s on you, Australia: Why our TV networks are going nuts for comedy right now
LOCAL TV programmers are giving audiences more reasons to laugh by adding a gamut of new comedy shows across networks and streaming services.
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HANDS up, who needs a good laugh?
For a start, our local TV programmers, who have packed their schedules with new comedy shows about to roll out across the main networks and streaming services.
After a blockbuster run with its reality ratings winner Married At First Sight, Channel 9 is already getting success with its comedy import, Young Sheldon.
The spin-off ‘prequel’ to mega-hit, Big Bang Theory peaked at a national audience of 1.7 million people on debut, with Nine to keep up double episodes in the coming weeks; as an alternative for non-sports viewers, disinterested in the Commonwealth Games.
A buoyant Nine, probably still chuckling after pinching the tennis rights from Seven on Friday, also has a second series of Hamish and Andy’s factual comedy, True Story to come this year.
That format — where actors play out the weird and wonderful true stories of punters — is also about to earn an international audience after the rights were sold to Germany, with deals in Spain and Israel in the works.
Shaun Micallef will host Nine’s reboot of Talkin’ Bout My Generation, with Andy Lee a team captain, alongside Robyn Butler.
Seven has its own plans, with Screen Australia funding confirmed for a new sketch comedy series, Orange Is The New Brown, starring I’m A Celebrity jungle favourite, Nazeem Hussein and Have You Been Paying Attention’s Ursila Carson.
The six-parter “will reflect contemporary Australian life using one-off sketches, original and recurring characters and TV parodies.”
Ten will be hoping the staggering ratings return of the Roseanne revival will translate here when it airs the series later this month, after 17.7 million people in the US tuned in to see the Connor family, all back on their crocheted couch.
Comic queen, Roseanne Barr has literally lived on a nut farm — growing macadamias in Hawaii — since she ended her signature sitcom in 1997, after brawling with studio bosses for years over creative differences.
But it’s Roseanne’s love for Trump — on and off screen — which has not surprisingly lured in new viewers; with the star doing the publicity rounds last week on the same late-night talk shows which have made their monologues all about paying out the hapless US president.
Foxtel has also responded to local interest in the retro reboot, with a rush on downloads of the show’s early seasons on its On Demand and Foxtel Now services.
Meanwhile, Netflix recently filmed a special at the Sydney Opera House, starring local comic, Hannah Gadsby, after US programmers read a rave review about her in the NY Times.
With comedy one of its three big programming pillars, the streaming service has loaded up its platform with new stand-up by Chris Rock, Kevin James and Inbetweeners actor, Greg Davies.
Netflix’ programmer Nishimura has argued: “the best stand-up comedians and the best documentarians are truly the social commentators of the day.’
“What they do, I think better than almost anybody, is to take everything that’s swirling in the world, and they synthesise it and present it in a way that we can actually engage.”