Graham Norton’s couch is staying put on this side of the pond. As the U.K.-based host’s long-running talker “The Graham Norton Show” returns for its Season 34 premiere next week, the show’s U.S. distribution has already been secured for two more seasons by AMC Global Media.
That means “The Graham Norton Show” will remain on BBC America — its linear stateside home for many years — through Seasons 34 (2026-2027) and 35 (2027-2028), while also continuing on three AMC Global Media streaming platforms: Acorn TV, AMC+ and All Reality. Last season averaged 153,000 linear viewers on BBC America, its best performance in three years, while Acorn TV (where most of the streaming audience watches) saw a year-over-year bump and AMC+ more than doubled its streaming audience over the previous season.
“He’s a singular talent,” said Courtney Thomasma, AMC Global’s exec VP of linear and streaming products. “He is just everything you want in a host. He’s warm and engaging and charismatic. He is an incredibly skilled interviewer, and I think he’s built a format that we call the ultimate late night celebrity dinner party … We talk about how his show really sits at the perfect intersection of a sort of uniquely British sophistication and broad pop culture appeal.”
For Norton, who is signed in the U.K. with BBC One to continue his show through at least 2029, it’s an opportunity to continue expanding his audience in the U.S. as well.
“We’ve had a loyal fan base in America for a long time,” Norton said. “It’s an odd thing. When I go to America, I don’t feel like anybody knows who I am. But there are certain situations where they do, and this must speak to the demographic of who watches this thing. If I go to a Broadway theater, everyone, all the kids who work there, know who I am. I can’t explain that, but it’s very nice. I often get a free drink!”
Of course, Norton got plenty of global attention earlier this year when he appeared in Taylor Swift’s music video for “Opalite” — along with the guests she sat alongside on Norton’s couch in a Season 33 episode: Cillian Murphy, Domhnall Gleeson, Greta Lee, Jodie Smith and Lewis Capaldi.
“The Swifties know the show because she’s been on multiple times, and wherever she appears, they will find her,” Norton said. “They’re not going to ignore a show that she’s on, so they all knew who I was, but there must have been people who encountered that video going, ‘Who are these people? Why is this very strange ragtag of people all together in a video?’ And of course, there were the conspiracy theories where they thought we had filmed the video before the show, and that’s why everyone was on the show with her, rather than the other way around.”
In premiering the video, Swift called “The Graham Norton Show” one of her favorite programs, and even described Norton as “the insanely charismatic and lovable host” who “invites a random group of actors, entertainers, musicians, etc. to be on his show and we all sit there and chat like it’s a dinner party.” Not a bad promo from the global superstar.
Norton credited that kind of positive on-set vibe, as described by Swift, for why the show has lasted for 34 seasons and counting. “We never imagined we would be this long-running, but we knew we wanted to keep going,” he said. “You can have those viral moments, and you can have those standout things and clips that get loads of attention. But if the people in the clips aren’t having a good time, they’re not going to come back. We need returning guests. Here in Britain, there have been talk shows in the past where they had gotcha moments or embarrassed the guests. That’s not sustainable.”
Norton’s guest list from Season 33 proved that his philosophy is working: Besides Swift, it included Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Matthew McConaughey, Julia Roberts, Colin Farrell, Benedict Cumberbatch, Bruce Springsteen, Jeremy Allen White, Jennifer Lawrence, Tessa Thompson, Kim Kardashian, Glen Powell, Michelle Yeoh, Kate Hudson, Ben Stiller, Timothée Chalamet, Emma Thompson, Laura Dern, Cynthia Erivo, Halle Berry, Chris Hemsworth, Jacob Elordi, Jennifer Garner, Charli XCX and many more.
“I really like interviews on podcasts, but we are a different beast in that I can’t imagine a podcast that would get the people we get all at the same time, all together on a couch,” Norton said. “The other thing I think that totally changes the conversation and the tenor of the interview is that we’re doing it in front of a big audience. I think people behave differently in front of an audience. They tell stories differently in front of an audience.”
Norton said the show “takes a lot of moving parts and a lot of people and a lot of research,” and he admitted that with that much infrastructure, in this day and age, “maybe my show isn’t sustainable. Maybe this is the last throw of the dice.”
At the same time, he knows the talk environment has become even tougher in the U.S., with shows like “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” “Conan” and “The Late Late Show With James Corden” already going away.
“I imagine it is mostly financial,” he said. “In some way, I think Trump is keeping [the remaining] shows alive because they can’t cancel them. Otherwise, it looks like they’re caving to Trump.”
But as a weekly program, “The Graham Norton Show” doesn’t carry the same kind of demands that the U.S. chat shows, most of which run four days a week, have. “I’m in the glorious position of putting a show out once a week,” Norton said. “Why would I quit? It’s the nicest job in show business!”
Indeed, Norton added that with his BBC deal not up until 2029, he’s got time to figure out whether to continue. “I’m 65 at some point, and that sounds like a retirement age. But the world is changing, and it’s not like I’m big into gardening or beekeeping. I still really like my job, but equally I’m aware that I’m in an area of television where we are running out of road … It’s one thing to get a show on TV, but keeping it on TV for as long as we’ve been on is a larger slice of the pie than we deserve. So I’m really grateful.”
Here in the U.S., AMC Global Media has found that “The Graham Norton Show” garners unique audiences depending on the platform. Besides its long run on BBC America, it also has a natural resonance with Acorn TV viewers who already have an affinity for British culture, Thomasma said. Then, in adding “Graham Norton” to the new, younger and more female-skewing All Reality platform, “we found that we’re now reaching a newer pop culture celebrity-driven audience that are discovering Graham for the first time,” she said. “It’s been a really interesting way of seeing the universal appeal of the genre, but potentially different entry points for different audiences. Our data has shown that most of the viewing across platforms is complementary via very minimal duplication in terms of the Graham audience.”
Season 34 premieres in the U.K. on Friday, Sept. 25, and hits the U.S. platforms the following Thursday, Oct. 1. New episodes continue through March with that cadence — Thursdays here in the U.S. on BBC America and the AMC+, Acorn and All Reality streamers.
Guests on the premiere episode include Tom Cruise (promoting his new film “Digger”), Florence Pugh (“East of Eden”), comedian/actor Lolly Adefoe (who’s taking on the lead role in “Oh, Mary!”) and comic John Bishop. Also, Emeli Sandé will perform.
Norton said in interviewing Cruise, “I never get over the fact that it’s Tom Cruise. Mostly when you meet a big celebrity, after a while, it’s just a woman in a dress or a man in a suit, and you’re just talking to them. But he remains Tom Cruise throughout. I’ve met him socially at things, and to me, he’s always Tom Cruise. I don’t know what that’s about, and there aren’t many people who can do that. There is an electricity in the studio when he comes on.”
Among Norton’s guests in Week 2 will be Catherine Zeta-Jones, whose U.K. thriller series “Kill Jackie” will run on AMC+ in the U.S. “That’s an opportunity where we’re able to mine and promote and educate our viewers about a favorite personality and then something that they can watch on our platforms,” Thomasma said.
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