The bright side of life
Catherine Evans and Sam Tuck, GfK Media: To help banish the January blues, we are bringing you something cheerful – a look at the male comedians who helped us look on the bright side in 2011…
Having a nice week at work?
If so, you’re probably in the minority this week: according to research, the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year, and this year’s Blue Monday was probably even more depressing than most.
2011 was, I think we can all agree, a year of rather unrelenting doom and gloom. The economy mysteriously failed to kick-start itself, the summer brought an outbreak of rioting and even celebrated international news stories seemed to revolve around violence (the Arab Spring) and occasional deaths (… you don’t need a list here).
So, to help banish the blues, GfK Media is bringing you something a little more cheerful: a look at the male comedians who helped us look on the bright side in 2011 and, more importantly, the qualities that made them the recession-proof funny men to turn to in a fairly gloomy year. We’re not going to name names… that would be telling… but we are going to share with you some of the insights that GfK Media’s Talent Tracker can offer.
Our Talent Tracker survey assesses the positioning of a wide variety of TV celebrities using key metrics such as awareness, ‘likeability’, relevance and the value they add to channels and programmes. Talent Tracker also looks at the key attributes (warm, funny, knowledgeable, to name a few) associated with each person and provides benchmarks for context.
As you might expect, comedians are a well-liked lot: in this wave’s survey, with a mean score of 6.3 out of 10, they were the third most liked of seven categories, coming behind only comedy and drama actors. And, in fact, the most well liked of all the comedians we surveyed come out well above this (mean score of 7.2).
So what was it that made 2011 a good year for them?
One thing our top three most liked had in common was a regional accent (Welsh, Irish and Liverpudlian); comedians from the south of England fared considerably less well.
Ruling out our Welshman because while well-loved he was only known by a relatively small number (17% of our sample), we’re left with two equally charming regional accents. So, let’s look at what sets them apart…
One thing they had in common was the view that they are “always worth watching” (43% and 42%; 5-6 percentage points higher than the third place finisher and 10 percentage points above the next highest scoring).
The attributes that made them so successful varied: one was quick-witted (48%) and the other was entertaining and cheeky (35% and 28%). Partly (and somewhat obviously), they’re just funnier than anyone else in the field: 62% and 52% agreed that they were funny, compared to an average of only 41% for comedians in general.
Defying any idea that the audience wants something a bit more cosy and safe in their comedy during a tough time, ‘warm’ was an attribute that didn’t seem to be any predictor of likeability.
It’s also interesting to see what made their competition less successful: whilst a lot of the least liked comedians were seen as opinionated, the trait that seemed to really seal their fate was being cocky/egotistical – a characteristic shared by all three of the least liked comedians.
So what does this tell us? Reassuringly, that it helps to be funny… but also a little bit smart – be it cheeky or quick-witted. However, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed, where being smart strays into being cocky. If your talent is cocky or opinionated, the audience might not even notice that they’re funny. Comedy in a recession needs to help us make the best of a bad situation and see the bright side of life, and the comics who are the most valued are those who can play on this.
For more information about GfK Media’s Talent Tracker, contact: [email protected] or [email protected]