What People Watch

What makes great TV is a subjective question. My answer and yours are probably different. But what brings in large audiences is objectively measurable. Local stories seem to do this, regardless of the channel or service those stories are viewed on.

Chart 1: Top 10 programmes of 2024
Source: Barb 2024

2024’s top ten dominated by local stories

If we consider the top ten shows from 2024, we see immediately that these are all programmes with local relevance. Beloved British duos top the chart, followed by the standard disappointment for the England men at a major football tournament, the kicking of a national scandal into the public consciousness and a mixture of new (Traitors), long-running (Strictly and I’m a Celebrity) and returning classics (Gladiators). All with a decidedly British cast, topic or pedigree.

Britishness as a marker of success

Adolescence is the most recent example of this phenomenon, but it by no means stands alone. The Netflix show tackles a tragic reality for global society played out in the north of England, the specifics of which are not for an article on TV audiences to explore. But as a piece of television, it is almost unarguably brilliant. Innovatively shot, with standout performances from new and established British talent, it became the first programme from a streaming service to top the weekly Barb top 50 programmes chart.

The audience – 6.5m for episode one over seven days – has continued to accumulate. The 28-day audience has more than doubled to 13.2m.

Chart 2: Adolescence audiences build strongly over 28 days
Source: Barb, March 13th – April 9th 2025. TV set only.

At the start of 2024, ITV’s Mr Bates vs the Post Office extended its 7-day audience from 9.2m to 12.3m after 28 days. This story has parallels with Adolescence in its British cast and its dealing with tragic events, albeit real-life ones in this case.

It’s not all doom and gloom

While there are plenty of dark, tragic or crime-based stories that pulled in audiences with their British focus – Toxic Town (2.2m over 7 days for episode 1) is another from Netflix – there are lighter examples. Clarkson’s Farm, on Amazon Prime Video, is about an unskilled (in farming terms) wealthy man who runs a farm – badly. Rivals, from Disney+, adapts a Jilly Cooper novel with a mainly British and Irish cast. Both drew significant 7-day audiences – 5.2m for episode 1, series 3 of Clarkson’s Farm, while Rivals was at just under 1m for episode 1. This allows us to examine another impact of successful content that extends beyond its Britishness. Share of viewing can jump markedly on the back of these shows.

Taking more than their fair share

Programmes like Adolescence and Mr Bates show the ability of television to shine a light on societal issues. That is one of the reasons TV continues to thrive. In measurement terms, they also make a significant difference to channel share in a fragmented viewing landscape. Most channels or services will take a reasonably consistent share of total identified viewing. It takes something special to break people out of their established television habits. Barb data prove that this can be the case.

Adolescence helped to take Netflix’s share of total identified viewing to 9.8% in March 2025, up from 9.2% in March 2024. That may not sound like much, but in reach terms it is just over 2m more individuals.

Neither is this a new phenomenon for quality British content. We can look back to series one of The Teacher on 5 starring Sheridan Smith in early 2022. Each of the four episodes averaged over 5m. This was enough to push the channel’s share to nearly 4.5% while the programme was on air, from an average of just over 3% in January and February that year.

Similarities played out on different services

If British (and often Irish) themes, setting and casting bind these shows together, what we can see that sets them apart is the channels and services on which they are played out.

We’ve discussed examples from ITV, 5, Netflix, Amazon and Disney+. We saw the mainstays of British viewing from the BBC in the top 10 from 2024 upfront. We could also consider Slow Horses or even Ted Lasso on Apple TV+ (British themes, if not a wholly British cast).

Audiences will find content that is great to them, wherever it may be.

One programme can make a difference

In the case of Mr Bates and Adolescence these programmes made, and are making, a significant societal difference. Pushing a long running battle for justice to the forefront of the national agenda for the first and highlighting the negative impact of certain online activities on our children for the second. TV can, and should sometimes, be a serious business. It’s why fair and equitable measurement of TV viewing is taken so seriously.

Barb data demonstrate that these local stories, be they light or dark, are attractive to UK audiences. Local relevance is a core part of what makes great TV. And that is not subjective.

Doug Whelpdale is Head of Insight at Barb.

Doug also shares some of these insights in the following video: