If you’ve been glued to your television each night watching the latest season of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, then you may have noticed a distinct and refreshing lack of drama.
Unlike previous years, all of the competitors seem to genuinely like one another and are respectful and caring of each other. And, in what is surely a welcome gift to the show’s editors, they don’t talk over each other or interrupt with stories of one-upmanship.
Granted, they are competing to win $100,000 for a charity of their choice so it is in the best interests of both the celebs and producers to show them in as good a light as possible, but you’d think with the scarcity of food and lack of sleep there might be some tantrums here and there.
According to I’m a Celeb’s executive producer Stephen Tate, who is also Network Ten’s head of entertainment and factual programs, audiences just don’t have the appetite for conflict in the current climate.
Says Tate of his harmonious cast, “they’ve gone into this experience with a different mindset to any other cast that we’ve had. They’ve all experienced what we were all experiencing throughout the world, and so they have a different perspective.”
In fact, the closest thing we have seen to an argument this season (so far) was Abbie Chatfield’s heated exchange with Robert ‘Dipper’ DiPierdomenico after he made dated comments about her choice of swimwear.
It makes sense that right now, audiences don’t want to be any more stressed out than they already are given the global pandemic and depressing economic downturn so Tate is understandably thrilled that his team have managed to achieve a rare reality television balance of high ratings and low drama.
Those ratings included a series launch figure of 1.031 million metro viewers before experiencing an expected decline but Tate is confident they will creep back up.
“Obviously we hope that free-to-air audiences are going to fall back into a more usual viewing pattern, as people return to work and finish some holidays,” he explained to Mumbrella. “So we fully expect to see significant growth from here.”
Additionally, the current season of I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, which was shot locally due to COVID induced travel restrictions that Tate is debating the need to ever film the Australian version overseas again.
“At the moment, the audience is responding so strongly to an Australian version that you would have to question whether you would return to Africa,” he says. “Because we are very much led by the audience and they are loving it.”
We sure are.