In Denmark it’s a real estate reality show.
Two teams of real estate agents guess the price of houses, and they are bad at it. It’s however not a comedy show. The show started in 1991.
Sorry for.me writing this on mobile and all the parentheses, context etc. are explained in those so everything makes more sense. I’ll cover public television first.
In Finland, the annual independence day reception (Linnan juhlat or directly translated as Castle’s ball/party) at the president’s office (Presidentinlinna or directly translated as castle of the president) is usually the second most watched program every year, it is a tradition to watch the handshakes of the president and their spouse with the guests which are politicians, past presidents, artists (of various arts), veterans (though this changed last year) and other remarkable people.
First place as the most watched program then is usually the news broadcast during the reception, which is kind of stupid to have in my opinion as most of it is about the reception anyways.
Declaration of Christmastime peace is also often in the top 10 I would say with around a million viewers, so a fifth.
Then after those it depends yearly. The live broadcast of the election day results in the evening usually comes high up. This also applies on commercial channels.
Eurovision and our national selection has gained a huge amount of traction in the last few years so it is also very popular.
Do not forget the Olympics! They are also quite high every time. Other sports events are very popular too.
For commercial channels The Voice of Finland takes the cake. Another really popular show is Tanssii tähtien kanssa (Dance with the stars). In essence 3 judges eliminate pairs of celebrities and professional dance teachers/dancers one by one until a winner is found.
Other foreign formats either as is or adapted to a Finnish version are also found in the television landscape.
The Simpsons and Family Guy etc. have enough viewership it seems as episodes are shown daily, not on the flagship channels though. Friends also had a big impact when it first arrived here, those are also still seen on the telly fairly often.
Maybe not the most popular today, but some years it has been, and it’s still one of the more popular reoccurring shows, but…
First thought was "På Spåret", a gameshow where two teams (consisting of two celebrities each, usually people know for something rather than ‘just being famous’) compete in figure out various places and destinations around the world by various clues given by the hosts and by a video from a train.
The show has been airing almost every year since 1987, and has some years been seen by almost half the entire population.
Obviously a lot fewer viewers nowadays, with infinite streaming services and other forms of entertainments and pastimes, but the show has still remained popular across generations and also saw some well-needed rejuvenation with new hosts "recently" (well, only 15 years ago now).
A time-compressed video of a train route is shown, or less commonly a journey by car, bus, or boat/ferry (or in very rare cases other means of transportation), from the view of the train driver, to a certain destination anywhere in the world.
The hosts then read various clues (often very punny, with more or less far-fetched wordplay), of decreasing difficulty, and the potential score of the journey decreases along the the difficulty.
When either both teams have locked in an answer, or the final easy clues have been read, the destination is revealed.
Then there are a few short segments with follow-up questions relevant for (sometimes quite loosely related) to the the destination, for additional points.
Each episode usually consist of 3 journeys, usually one Swedish and two foreign.
Each episode also have a musical guest doing a song, somehow related to one of the destinations, where there’s most often a question regarding the original song or artist, and a similar secondary question regarding another song where only a few-seconds long segment is played, tied into the main song.
Each season then has some sort of elimination bracket, or round-robin system, which leads up to a final, where the two best teams/couples of the season meet to decide a winner team.
It’s quite chill entertainment, and may be somewhat fun to sit and compete with a friend or family member in the couch.
I remember a friend said it was one of the shows she casually watched to improve her language after moving to Sweden.
Apparently she found the show interesting enough even without having any previous connection to it, as in growing up with it just "always" being on TV, year after year.
For the UK, it used to be soap operas, but they have seen viewer numbers drop in recent years, for various reasons.
Live sport always does well, particularly major football tournaments.
We still place emphasis on the most-watched TV at Christmas – the BBC won that ‘battle’ with the final episode of the comedy Gavin and Stacey, and a new Wallace and Gromit film (Vengeance Most Fowl).
Our major commercial network ITV probably had the ‘sleeper’ hit of the year in 2024, with Mr Bates vs The Post Office, the dramatisation of a major scandal about some faulty accounting software that ultimately caused one of the largest miscarriages of justice in recent British history.
Year-round there’s a variety of ‘reality’ TV shows on different channels that are still popular, too.
TV is dying here. I don’t know anyone under 40 who’s watching it, even though most people have a TV.
Based on my mom’s watching it’s casual TV series like Barwy Szczęścia (colours of happiness) that’s been going for many years, some talent shows (Voice of Poland) or shows with real people looking for love (rolnik szuka żony) and sports.
Sports is always popular, like the highlight show of our national football league. Some night time talkshows are popular. A popular tv show is bed and breakfast, a typical slow tv show where 3 couples owning a b&b rate the other b&b.
Crime by a very long way; 8 of the top 10 highest weekly ratings were crime shows last week and it’s very rarely less than 5. The news isn’t watched that much here.
In Ireland we have a programme that is on in early December called "The late late Toy show", it’s a show where kids get to demonstrate and talk about a toy or a book that they have had a chance to play with or read beforehand. There are also several musical and dance acts again, all performed by kids. Some kids dreams come true by meeting a famous celebrity or they get a gift of a holiday with their family etc. The show raises so much money for children’s charities too, over €5m in 2024 and we only have a population of 5m (7m incl NI). The audience are given gifts all night too. It’s a Christmas tradition here and it’s streamed across the world to Irish living abroad. There’s a clothes store called Penneys which sells pyjamas with the logo of the show on it. People dress up in these pjs to watch the show. Kids across the country are allowed to stay up late to watch it. On social media there’s always a lot of fun banter, as the show proceeds through the evening.
Vikan með Gísla Marteini (The Week with Gísli Marteinn). Is a weekly talk show fairly popular these days
Out of all the European countries, Eurovision is probably the most watched in Iceland per capita, we absolutely love it. We’re still waiting on a win though. When Eurovision was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid we had a really strong song by Daði Freyr which could easily have won (and was voted as the unofficial winner). A consolatio price is the Will Ferrell Netflix movie about Eurovision being set in Iceland.
Every new year’s eve there’s a comedy sketch program called Skaupið shown a couple of hours before the year ends, making light-hearted jokes at socio-political happenings that past year. Probably 90% or more of the country watches it.
I think there are two reality shows which have been quite popular and have reached greater viewership than the usual trash reality shows that otherwise dominate.
Árulók – Gyilkosság a kastélyban is the Hungarian version of De Verraders / The Traitors. There have been two seasons with celebrities and one season with civilian players, but I think they were quite popular. There are more seasons to come.
Kincsvadászok – the Hungarian version of the German Bares für Rares, a reality show where people offer their antique objects, an expert makes an approximation how much money they can get from it, then five antique dealers bid for it, the highest bidder can buy it for that price if the seller is happy with it.
Eurovision always gets good viewing figures. Sure, it’s very unusual we get into the top half of the scoreboard, maybe once a decade, but it’s the coverage style that attracts the viewers. The commentary is very dry humour and very much tongue in cheek, they don’t take it remotely seriously unlike E European countries.
I like Eurovision, it’s my annual chance to play the Eurovision drinking game.
1 finger of beer for each of the following
Hosts change their clothes mid show
A wind machine is used
A song changes key
A song is about peace, love or Europe
A silly prop is used eg a giant hamster wheel
During the results the announcer for a country comments about how it was an amazing show.
Make sure to have a lot of beer before the show starts.
In Italy usually it’s football and various contests of singing, dancing, cooking or whatever (The annual Sanremo song contest is the most hyped TV event).
The 19:00 – 21:00 time is usually for gameshows. Series from abroad (Spain and Turkiye) seem to be very popular.
Comments
NHL Hockey baby!!! A nation of hockey fans… we invented the game and love watching it.
In Denmark it’s a real estate reality show.
Two teams of real estate agents guess the price of houses, and they are bad at it. It’s however not a comedy show. The show started in 1991.
Sorry for.me writing this on mobile and all the parentheses, context etc. are explained in those so everything makes more sense. I’ll cover public television first.
In Finland, the annual independence day reception (Linnan juhlat or directly translated as Castle’s ball/party) at the president’s office (Presidentinlinna or directly translated as castle of the president) is usually the second most watched program every year, it is a tradition to watch the handshakes of the president and their spouse with the guests which are politicians, past presidents, artists (of various arts), veterans (though this changed last year) and other remarkable people.
First place as the most watched program then is usually the news broadcast during the reception, which is kind of stupid to have in my opinion as most of it is about the reception anyways.
Declaration of Christmastime peace is also often in the top 10 I would say with around a million viewers, so a fifth.
Then after those it depends yearly. The live broadcast of the election day results in the evening usually comes high up. This also applies on commercial channels.
Eurovision and our national selection has gained a huge amount of traction in the last few years so it is also very popular.
Do not forget the Olympics! They are also quite high every time. Other sports events are very popular too.
For commercial channels The Voice of Finland takes the cake. Another really popular show is Tanssii tähtien kanssa (Dance with the stars). In essence 3 judges eliminate pairs of celebrities and professional dance teachers/dancers one by one until a winner is found.
Other foreign formats either as is or adapted to a Finnish version are also found in the television landscape.
The Simpsons and Family Guy etc. have enough viewership it seems as episodes are shown daily, not on the flagship channels though. Friends also had a big impact when it first arrived here, those are also still seen on the telly fairly often.
Maybe not the most popular today, but some years it has been, and it’s still one of the more popular reoccurring shows, but…
First thought was "På Spåret", a gameshow where two teams (consisting of two celebrities each, usually people know for something rather than ‘just being famous’) compete in figure out various places and destinations around the world by various clues given by the hosts and by a video from a train.
The show has been airing almost every year since 1987, and has some years been seen by almost half the entire population.
Obviously a lot fewer viewers nowadays, with infinite streaming services and other forms of entertainments and pastimes, but the show has still remained popular across generations and also saw some well-needed rejuvenation with new hosts "recently" (well, only 15 years ago now).
A time-compressed video of a train route is shown, or less commonly a journey by car, bus, or boat/ferry (or in very rare cases other means of transportation), from the view of the train driver, to a certain destination anywhere in the world.
The hosts then read various clues (often very punny, with more or less far-fetched wordplay), of decreasing difficulty, and the potential score of the journey decreases along the the difficulty.
When either both teams have locked in an answer, or the final easy clues have been read, the destination is revealed.
Then there are a few short segments with follow-up questions relevant for (sometimes quite loosely related) to the the destination, for additional points.
Each episode usually consist of 3 journeys, usually one Swedish and two foreign.
Each episode also have a musical guest doing a song, somehow related to one of the destinations, where there’s most often a question regarding the original song or artist, and a similar secondary question regarding another song where only a few-seconds long segment is played, tied into the main song.
Each season then has some sort of elimination bracket, or round-robin system, which leads up to a final, where the two best teams/couples of the season meet to decide a winner team.
It’s quite chill entertainment, and may be somewhat fun to sit and compete with a friend or family member in the couch.
I remember a friend said it was one of the shows she casually watched to improve her language after moving to Sweden.
Apparently she found the show interesting enough even without having any previous connection to it, as in growing up with it just "always" being on TV, year after year.
For regular programming it’s the crime show Tatort.
Probably Wie is de Mol? beside football.
For the UK, it used to be soap operas, but they have seen viewer numbers drop in recent years, for various reasons.
Live sport always does well, particularly major football tournaments.
We still place emphasis on the most-watched TV at Christmas – the BBC won that ‘battle’ with the final episode of the comedy Gavin and Stacey, and a new Wallace and Gromit film (Vengeance Most Fowl).
Our major commercial network ITV probably had the ‘sleeper’ hit of the year in 2024, with Mr Bates vs The Post Office, the dramatisation of a major scandal about some faulty accounting software that ultimately caused one of the largest miscarriages of justice in recent British history.
Year-round there’s a variety of ‘reality’ TV shows on different channels that are still popular, too.
TV is dying here. I don’t know anyone under 40 who’s watching it, even though most people have a TV.
Based on my mom’s watching it’s casual TV series like Barwy Szczęścia (colours of happiness) that’s been going for many years, some talent shows (Voice of Poland) or shows with real people looking for love (rolnik szuka żony) and sports.
World Championship in hockey usually takes up at least half of the top 10 most viewed broadcasts every year.
Eurovision usually cracks the top 10 as well, and every year with no fail the New Year’s speeches from the president and PM are at the top.
The most popular programmes are usually one time events, but stuff like talent/singing shows usually are up there, and those are weekly.
Most popular movie has to be Home Alone, it gets shown every December on the weekends, and everyone loves to rewatch it.
for TV series, honorable mention has to go to Midsommer Murders, I think it is way more popular here than it is in UK, it’s country of origin
Sports is always popular, like the highlight show of our national football league. Some night time talkshows are popular. A popular tv show is bed and breakfast, a typical slow tv show where 3 couples owning a b&b rate the other b&b.
Crime by a very long way; 8 of the top 10 highest weekly ratings were crime shows last week and it’s very rarely less than 5. The news isn’t watched that much here.
In Ireland we have a programme that is on in early December called "The late late Toy show", it’s a show where kids get to demonstrate and talk about a toy or a book that they have had a chance to play with or read beforehand. There are also several musical and dance acts again, all performed by kids. Some kids dreams come true by meeting a famous celebrity or they get a gift of a holiday with their family etc. The show raises so much money for children’s charities too, over €5m in 2024 and we only have a population of 5m (7m incl NI). The audience are given gifts all night too. It’s a Christmas tradition here and it’s streamed across the world to Irish living abroad. There’s a clothes store called Penneys which sells pyjamas with the logo of the show on it. People dress up in these pjs to watch the show. Kids across the country are allowed to stay up late to watch it. On social media there’s always a lot of fun banter, as the show proceeds through the evening.
Iceland
Vikan með Gísla Marteini (The Week with Gísli Marteinn). Is a weekly talk show fairly popular these days
Out of all the European countries, Eurovision is probably the most watched in Iceland per capita, we absolutely love it. We’re still waiting on a win though. When Eurovision was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid we had a really strong song by Daði Freyr which could easily have won (and was voted as the unofficial winner). A consolatio price is the Will Ferrell Netflix movie about Eurovision being set in Iceland.
Every new year’s eve there’s a comedy sketch program called Skaupið shown a couple of hours before the year ends, making light-hearted jokes at socio-political happenings that past year. Probably 90% or more of the country watches it.
I think there are two reality shows which have been quite popular and have reached greater viewership than the usual trash reality shows that otherwise dominate.
Árulók – Gyilkosság a kastélyban is the Hungarian version of De Verraders / The Traitors. There have been two seasons with celebrities and one season with civilian players, but I think they were quite popular. There are more seasons to come.
Eurovision always gets good viewing figures. Sure, it’s very unusual we get into the top half of the scoreboard, maybe once a decade, but it’s the coverage style that attracts the viewers. The commentary is very dry humour and very much tongue in cheek, they don’t take it remotely seriously unlike E European countries.
I like Eurovision, it’s my annual chance to play the Eurovision drinking game.
1 finger of beer for each of the following
Make sure to have a lot of beer before the show starts.
In Italy usually it’s football and various contests of singing, dancing, cooking or whatever (The annual Sanremo song contest is the most hyped TV event).
The 19:00 – 21:00 time is usually for gameshows. Series from abroad (Spain and Turkiye) seem to be very popular.