Channel 4 Extends Its Reign as the UK Home of Taskmaster

Channel 4 has today announced the recommission of Taskmaster, keeping the Bafta and Rose D’Or award-winning format on the British public service broadcaster.

The deal sees Greg Davies and Alex Horne continue in their roles as the Taskmaster and his very small sidekick in six new series of the global hit series. Taskmaster’s New Year Treat, and the fan-favourite Taskmaster Champion of Champions (once there are more champions to crown) will also return.

All series of Taskmaster will continue to be available to stream for free on Channel 4, and fans will now also be able to stream the successful New Zealand, Australian and Canadian versions of the show on Channel 4 and Channel 4’s YouTube channel (UK), which are among the 13 international versions of the format which air across the world.

The deal also includes full episodes on Channel 4’s YouTube channel for a UK audience. Series 19, which aired in 2025 also saw the strongest ever share for the show on the channel, with 0-7 day consolidated share showing more than four times the slot average of hard to reach 16-34s. Taskmaster clips on Channel 4 run social platforms YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat reached 165 million global views in 2025.

Globally, Taskmaster views on the official worldwide YouTube channel hit 1.4 billion, reflecting a significant growth in popularity in 2025 with annual views up 69% to 426 million, and new subscribers up 69%. There has also been a continued increase in North American viewership year on year, with views up 70% to 243 million, while new subscribers from North America were up 82%. The channel has now reached over 1.4 billion lifetime views across over 100 million unique viewers since it launched in 2019.

Tom Beck, Head of Live Events and Commissioning Editor, said: “Taskmaster is the most creative, funny and frankly ludicrous show on telly; I’m delighted to enable their silly brilliance for another three years”.

Alex Horne, the show’s creator and host commented: “I’m pleased and quite stressed that I’ve got to come up with a lot more tasks for a lot more comedians but the thought of three more years in Greg’s deep embrace is soothing my little head”.

The Taskmaster, Greg Davies said: “I am delighted the comedian meat grinder remains open for business. I look forward to gleefully keeping it fed with the help of a small, introverted man that I own.”

Jon Thoday, executive producer, said: “It is fantastic to be renewing our successful UK partnership with Channel 4. The brilliance of Alex, Greg, the production team, along with the excellent comedians, keep this show delighting and surprising viewers every series.”

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 series of strange and surreal challenges in what is the most hard-fought and ridiculous comedy entertainment format on TV.

• 209 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, Taskmaster 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 episode [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 Entertainment Craft at the 2025 BAFTAs, and Best Comedy Entertainment at the Rose D’Or Awards 2024. Previously 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 nominated 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 Broadcast 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 92 seasons and 921 episodes have been commissioned outside the UK with local versions now in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Croatia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, 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 production 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% market share in a primetime weekend slot on SVT and series 11 and 12 in production for TV4, produced by Avalon Television with Baluba. 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 Discovery. Finland’s version of Taskmaster, Suurmestari, won Game Show of the Year at the Venla Gaala 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 ninth series, won Best Game Show at the 2022 Vindere Awards making it their most successful 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 14.4 billion impressions since it first launched in October 2019, with just over 1.4 billion views and over 2.1 million subscribers. The channel has had over 289 million hours’ worth of content viewed with 57% of those hours from North America (168 million hours watched). The show has grown significantly in popularity with American audiences throughout 2025. There has been an 85% increase in North American viewership year on year, with over 174 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.
  
  

• 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.