From Pingu to Bullseye, why it feels like all your old TV favourites are coming back

Out with the new, in with the old.

ITV is reviving Bullseye with Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff in the Jim Bowen role. (ITV/Shutterstock)
ITV is reviving Bullseye with Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff in the Jim Bowen role. (ITV/Shutterstock)

It can sometimes feel as if there are no new ideas in television. Just this month it was announced that the classic game show Bullseye is returning and the animation Pingu is coming back (noot noot!). Turn on ITV this autumn and you’ll be greeted by noughties hits such as Deal or No Deal, Wheel of Fortune, Big Brother and Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?

And if you look ahead to this year’s Christmas TV schedule, you’ll see the return of sitcoms Outnumbered and Gavin & Stacey, along with a new Wallace & Gromit film. Funnily enough, all of these three shows were at the heart of the BBC’s Christmas TV offering back in 2008.

And the numbers of reboots are rising too. So far in 2024 there have been double the number of reboots in the UK — according to media analytics firm Ampere Analysis — in everything from drama to entertainment, compared to 2023. That’s eighteen shows this year alone.

So why is it happening? One reason is down to the challenging market conditions that television production currently finds itself in, a result of commercial channels receiving less money from advertising, streamers investing in fewer big releases and the BBC making fewer programmes due to the current licence fee deal.

PINGU 2006 de Nick Herbert et Otmar Gutmann segment
Pingu the stop motion penguin is being revived by Aardman. (The Pygos Group/Alamy)

Investing in a show everyone is familiar with is "associated with less risk," says Cyrine Amor, a research manager at Ampere Analysis. "It means there’s already a level of familiarity with the programme, it is more likely to stand out among the huge choice of content available to viewers, especially now that they are increasingly migrating to viewing content on demand rather than through linear channels."

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With a reboot, you don’t need to explain the format or the rules that much. Even if it fails, people are willing to give at least one episode a try, to see whether it still has that magic. And a reboot can also make sense from a PR perspective.

"In an incredibly crowded and competitive market, re-launching tried and tested, and more importantly beloved, shows can definitely give you an edge in terms of buzz, headlines and media engagement," says Daniel Maynard, managing director of PR firm WDM Entertainment.

Tobermory on the Isle of Mull was the setting for the beloved CBeebies series Balamory. (BBC)
Tobermory on the Isle of Mull was the setting for the beloved CBeebies series Balamory. (BBC)

An announcement of a revival naturally creates a lot of headlines: Bullseye’s return made the front page of The Sun, whilst the return of classic children’s show Balamory was reported by BBC News. In fact, the news of Balamory’s return led to one of my favourite quotes I’ve seen in the news all year, when Miss Hoolie aka. Julie Wilson Nimmo told the BBC, "I seriously think this is bigger than the Oasis reunion.”

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Nostalgia is also a big factor too. Gladiators was a big success for the BBC — receiving more than six million viewers for its first episode — because it managed to capture the hedonistic lycra nonsense of old for the parents, whilst being a novelty and a pantomime for the kids.

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The BBC's revival of Gladiators wisely chose an 'if it aint broke' broke approach. (BBC)

And reboots can work not just for traditional broadcasters, but streaming services as well. The US sitcom Frasier, whose finale back in 2004 had more than 25 million viewers, had been mooted for a reboot for many years. The reboot ended up on the streamer Paramount+, which funnily enough happens to be the place where you can watch all of the show’s entire back catalogue.

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Yet, don’t be fooled into thinking that all television seems to be reboots. According to media analysts Amor, the total number of reboots only make up 3% of all shows commissioned this year and even though the number of shows have doubled in the year, it is only a rise of 1%.

And as Maynard points out, there’s still a lot of new stories, new voices and new perspectives in TV shows that broadcasters and streamers compete for: from The Traitors, The Bear to Slow Horses.

But knowing all of this info, will I be sat front and centre in front of the television for the Pingu reunion? Yes. Yes I will.