{"id":610533,"date":"2026-09-24T18:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610533\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T18:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T18:02:09","slug":"the-graham-norton-show-two-year-pickup-at-bbc-america-amc-streamers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/610533\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Graham Norton Show’ Two-Year Pickup at BBC America, AMC Streamers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tGraham Norton<\/a>\u2019s couch is staying put on this side of the pond. As the U.K.-based host\u2019s long-running talker \u201cThe Graham Norton Show<\/a>\u201d returns for its Season 34 premiere next week, the show\u2019s U.S. distribution has already been secured for two more seasons by AMC Global Media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat means \u201cThe Graham Norton Show\u201d will remain on BBC America<\/a> \u2014 its linear stateside home for many years \u2014 through Seasons 34 (2026-2027) and 35 (2027-2028), while also continuing on three AMC Global Media streaming platforms: Acorn TV, AMC+ and All Reality. Last season averaged 153,000 linear viewers on BBC America, its best performance in three years, while Acorn TV (where most of the streaming audience watches) saw a year-over-year bump and AMC+ more than doubled its streaming audience over the previous season.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHe\u2019s a singular talent,\u201d said Courtney Thomasma, AMC Global\u2019s exec VP of linear and streaming products. \u201cHe is just everything you want in a host. He\u2019s warm and engaging and charismatic. He is an incredibly skilled interviewer, and I think he\u2019s built a format that we call the ultimate late night celebrity dinner party \u2026 We talk about how his show really sits at the perfect intersection of a sort of uniquely British sophistication and broad pop culture appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor Norton, who is signed in the U.K. with BBC One to continue his show through at least 2029, it\u2019s an opportunity to continue expanding his audience in the U.S. as well.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019ve had a loyal fan base in America for a long time,\u201d Norton said. \u201cIt\u2019s an odd thing. When I go to America, I don\u2019t feel like anybody knows who I am. But there are certain situations where they do, and this must speak to the demographic of who watches this thing. If I go to a Broadway theater, everyone, all the kids who work there, know who I am. I can\u2019t explain that, but it\u2019s very nice. I often get a free drink!\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, Norton got plenty of global attention earlier this year when he appeared in Taylor Swift\u2019s music video for \u201cOpalite\u201d \u2014 along with the guests she sat alongside on Norton\u2019s couch in a Season 33 episode: Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Smith and Lewis Capaldi.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Swifties know the show because she\u2019s been on multiple times, and wherever she appears, they will find her,\u201d Norton said. \u201cThey\u2019re not going to ignore a show that she\u2019s on, so they all knew who I was, but there must have been people who encountered that video going, \u2018Who are these people? Why is this very strange ragtag of people all together in a video?\u2019 And of course, there were the conspiracy theories where they thought we had filmed the video before the show, and that\u2019s why everyone was on the show with her, rather than the other way around.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn premiering the video, Swift called \u201cThe Graham Norton Show\u201d one of her favorite programs, and even described Norton as \u201cthe insanely charismatic and lovable host\u201d who \u201cinvites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc. to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it\u2019s a dinner party.\u201d Not a bad promo from the global superstar.<\/p>\n

\n\tNorton credited that kind of positive on-set vibe, as described by Swift, for why the show has lasted for 34 seasons and counting. \u201cWe never imagined we would be this long-running, but we knew we wanted to keep going,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can have those viral moments, and you can have those standout things and clips that get loads of attention. But if the people in the clips aren\u2019t having a good time, they\u2019re not going to come back. We need returning guests. Here in Britain, there have been talk shows in the past where they had gotcha moments or embarrassed the guests. That\u2019s not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNorton\u2019s guest list from Season 33 proved that his philosophy is working: Besides Swift, it included Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Matthew McConaughey, Julia Roberts, Colin Farrell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bruce Springsteen, Jeremy Allen White, Jennifer Lawrence, Tessa Thompson, Kim Kardashian, Glen Powell, Michelle Yeoh, Kate Hudson, Ben Stiller, Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, Emma Thompson, Laura Dern, Cynthia Erivo, Halle Berry, Chris Hemsworth, Jacob Elordi, Jennifer Garner, Charli XCX and many more.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI really like interviews on podcasts, but we are a different beast in that I can\u2019t imagine a podcast that would get the people we get all at the same time, all together on a couch,\u201d Norton said. \u201cThe other thing I think that totally changes the conversation and the tenor of the interview is that we\u2019re doing it in front of a big audience. I think people behave differently in front of an audience. They tell stories differently in front of an audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tNorton said the show \u201ctakes a lot of moving parts and a lot of people and a lot of research,\u201d and he admitted that with that much infrastructure, in this day and age, \u201cmaybe my show isn\u2019t sustainable. Maybe this is the last throw of the dice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, he knows the talk environment has become even tougher in the U.S., with shows like \u201cThe Late Show With Stephen Colbert,\u201d \u201cConan\u201d and \u201cThe Late Late Show With James Corden\u201d already going away.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI imagine it is mostly financial,\u201d he said. \u201cIn some way, I think Trump is keeping [the remaining] shows alive because they can\u2019t cancel them. Otherwise, it looks like they\u2019re caving to Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut as a weekly program, \u201cThe Graham Norton Show\u201d doesn\u2019t carry the same kind of demands that the U.S. chat shows, most of which run four days a week, have. \u201cI\u2019m in the glorious position of putting a show out once a week,\u201d Norton said. \u201cWhy would I quit? It\u2019s the nicest job in show business!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, Norton added that with his BBC deal not up until 2029, he\u2019s got time to figure out whether to continue. \u201cI\u2019m 65 at some point, and that sounds like a retirement age. But the world is changing, and it\u2019s not like I\u2019m big into gardening or beekeeping. I still really like my job, but equally I\u2019m aware that I\u2019m in an area of television where we are running out of road \u2026 It\u2019s one thing to get a show on TV, but keeping it on TV for as long as we\u2019ve been on is a larger slice of the pie than we deserve. So I\u2019m really grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHere in the U.S., AMC Global Media has found that \u201cThe Graham Norton Show\u201d garners unique audiences depending on the platform. Besides its long run on BBC America, it also has a natural resonance with Acorn TV viewers who already have an affinity for British culture, Thomasma said. Then, in adding \u201cGraham Norton\u201d to the new, younger and more female-skewing All Reality platform, \u201cwe found that we\u2019re now reaching a newer pop culture celebrity-driven audience that are discovering Graham for the first time,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a really interesting way of seeing the universal appeal of the genre, but potentially different entry points for different audiences. Our data has shown that most of the viewing across platforms is complementary via very minimal duplication in terms of the Graham audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason 34 premieres in the U.K. on Friday, Sept. 25, and hits the U.S. platforms the following Thursday, Oct. 1. New episodes continue through March with that cadence \u2014 Thursdays here in the U.S. on BBC America and the AMC+, Acorn and All Reality streamers.<\/p>\n

\n\tGuests on the premiere episode include Tom Cruise (promoting his new film \u201cDigger\u201d), Florence Pugh (\u201cEast of Eden\u201d), comedian\/actor Lolly Adefoe (who\u2019s taking on the lead role in \u201cOh, Mary!\u201d) and comic John Bishop. Also, Emeli Sand\u00e9 will perform.<\/p>\n

\n\tNorton said in interviewing Cruise, \u201cI never get over the fact that it\u2019s Tom Cruise. Mostly when you meet a big celebrity, after a while, it\u2019s just a woman in a dress or a man in a suit, and you\u2019re just talking to them. But he remains Tom Cruise throughout. I\u2019ve met him socially at things, and to me, he\u2019s always Tom Cruise. I don\u2019t know what that\u2019s about, and there aren\u2019t many people who can do that. There is an electricity in the studio when he comes on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong Norton\u2019s guests in Week 2 will be Catherine Zeta-Jones, whose U.K. thriller series \u201cKill Jackie\u201d will run on AMC+ in the U.S. \u201cThat\u2019s an opportunity where we\u2019re able to mine and promote and educate our viewers about a favorite personality and then something that they can watch on our platforms,\u201d Thomasma said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Graham Norton\u2019s couch is staying put on this side of the pond. As the U.K.-based host\u2019s long-running talker…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[193722,300910,156,36309,111,139,69,51364,437],"class_list":["post-610533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-amc-global-media","tag-bbc-america","tag-entertainment","tag-graham-norton","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-the-graham-norton-show","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}