Have satirical panel shows had their day?
Have I Got News For You (returning this weekend) is the BBC’s last remaining show of its kind. What’s behind the demise of the genre?
A couple of weeks ago, I read with some surprise that Have I Got News For You (HIGNFY) is to be the sole remaining BBC TV satirical panel show.
Somehow, the apparent slow death of the genre has passed me by unnoticed. I remember a time a little over a decade ago when it was impossible to avoid it - if HIGNFY was out of season, then the likes of Mock the Week, Russell Howard’s Good News, and the array of Charlie Brooker’s Wipe series were all likely on air in its place.
So what could be driving the genre’s demise? What is HIGNFY still doing right to still be on air after more than three decades? And do TV satirical panel shows have a future on the BBC?
The BBC’s long-term funding issues are cited as an issue, with TV producer Jon Thoday stating that the Beeb may also be concerned about airing programmes of the genre due to “political pressure”.
There’s no doubt that shows which set out to criticise and/or satirise politicians (and establishment figures more generally) will always make BBC executives a little edgy. All broadcast media organisations do, in theory, have responsibilities when it comes to the reporting of news (for “in theory”, see the recent rise of the likes of GB News, which I and others still pointedly refer to as GBeebies). The BBC though, as a publicly-funded broadcaster, does find itself having to be particularly careful with regards to impartiality, as the recent row regarding Gary Lineker showed.
I’ve always thought that HIGNFY handles the impartiality issue quite well, dishing out satire against both of the two main political parties (and the others too, even if only by joking about whether or not the public know they exist).
Right-leaning folk may well find the show today to be overly critical of the Conservatives (as opposed to opposition parties), but this isn’t surprising - they are the government of the day. Look at some more vintage clips from and just after the time of New Labour and you’ll see that the show doesn’t just have it in for the Conservatives.
Aside from the issues of funding and impartiality, one also has to wonder whether the format itself isn’t just a little tired. We’re in an era where political satire is often well-saturated within our social media feeds. HIGNFY has itself leant into this, often publishing multiple bits of content per day on Twitter and Facebook even in the 30-or-so weeks that they’re off our screens.
Audience demographics may play a key part too; the likes of Frankie Boyle’s New World Order (shelved specifically due to “dwindling viewership”) were invariably aimed at younger viewers, many of whom, instead of rushing to their TV sets of an evening (if they even own one), might be engaging in other activities. The BBC’s rather lackadaisical approach to its young-adult viewership might not be helping that either.
Have I Got News For You, on the other hand, with a likely more universal demographic, still pulls in audiences of over 5m for a weekly edition. For a TV show which airs on a Friday night in the 2020s, this is pretty good going. Some complain of it being the same tired old format, but when the content is everchanging (as the word ‘news’ might imply), the format, if it works, doesn’t necessarily require reinvention.
There are some issues. Panellists often go beyond satire and make speeches that might be more appropriate on the likes of a topical panel show such as Question Time; this risks putting a strain on the BBC’s desire for impartiality. There is also the issue which pervades many comedy panel shows: the lack of diversity. A lack of gender diversity will always be harder when the two permanent panellists both happen to be male, but the task is not insurmountable. It has, to be fair, been a lot better than shows such as Mock the Week.
Some friends who watched HIGNFY in its heyday have told me that they rarely do now, arguing that it’s seen better days or that they have general fatigue with anything news-related. I can sympathise with this; the news became particularly depressing for a while (think the Brexit/Labour/Conservative wars, the election of Trump, the pandemic) and any show like this would have struggled to make us laugh when discussing these issues.
I think the last two or three series have been markedly better than their more recent predecessors, and that’s probably because the world has gotten a bit more back to normal, major political upheaval and pandemic both having left the stage (although let’s hope we’re not just in the eye of the storm). One might argue that the fact that HIGNFY is still here after all of this has demonstrated its staying power and its status as a much-loved BBC show. I doubt I’ll be alone in looking forward to the new series beginning tomorrow evening.
Series 65 of Have I Got News For You begins tomorrow at 9 o’clock on BBC One, hosted by Charlie Brooker.