Channel 4 cancels Bafta-winning The Big Narstie Show
Rapper Big Narstie and comedian Mo Gilligan have hosted the show since 2018.
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Your support makes all the difference.Bafta-winning The Big Nastie Show will not return for a sixth season, Channel 4 has confirmed.
Grime MC Big Narstie co-hosted the late-night entertainment series with comedian Mo Gilligan from 2018.
Filmed in front of a live studio audience, the pair were joined by celebrity guests as they presented segments on the news of the week, TV, showbiz, trends, phone-ins and food.
In 2021, the show won a Bafta TV award for best comedy entertainment programme.
Channel 4 said it was a creative rather than cost-cutting decision to decommission The Big Narstie Show.
It comes as the broadcaster reshuffles its schedule after a “downturn in the ad-market”.
But a Channel 4 spokesperson said: “The decision not to recommission a sixth series of The Big Narstie Show is not part of our response to challenges in the advertising market.
“We are immensely proud of the five series we have made of this innovative Bafta-winning show but we have to look carefully at what we commission each year to make sure we continue to innovate and offer viewers a varied range of programming.
“We look forward to working with Dice, Expectation and Big Narstie on other projects in the future.”
It comes days after Channel 4’s content chief Ian Katz wrote a letter to suppliers acknowledging challenges for the broadcaster in the advertising market.
He wrote: “As you know, advertising revenues have been significantly down for all commercial broadcasters through the first half of this year – even against the relatively cautious predictions on which we based our 2023 budgets.
“In the short term that has meant taking a number of steps including looking at cashflow and producer finance and re-phasing when programmes will be produced and transmitted.
“Our objective through this period has been to preserve planned production. Regrettably we’ve had to rest or not proceed with a small number of shows before they were financially greenlit.”
Mr Katz said Channel 4 will be commissioning “relatively little over the summer months” outside of digital and current affairs, but said the challenges are “cyclical and the product of weakness in the wider economy impacting the advertising market”.