‘LUDICROUS FUN’
Masked Singer has become the one reality show immune to the virus
The Masked Singer Wednesdays, CTV/FOX
On a momentous Wednesday in March, the world changed.
Within the span of a few hours, the NBA suspended its season, actor Tom Hanks revealed he had tested positive for the coronavirus and Donald Trump gave a rare Oval Office address on the growing threat.
That same night, the Fox reality show The Masked Singer attended to a different matter. The singing character of Bear was revealed to be one-time vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who commemorated her “unmasking ” with a spirited performance of Sir Mixa-lot’s Baby Got Back.
Coronavirus-induced quarantines have led to vast sections of American entertainment being shut down or reined in.
But The Masked Singer has powered along like it’s any other spring. And because it concluded taping in February, it has kept up a schedule of new performances that, with its raucous live crowds, seem to have been zapped in from a distant historical period.
“What we’re finding is that viewers love a show that gives the feeling that this time, POST-COVID(19), is no different than the time PRECOVID(19),” said Peter Hamilton, a veteran consultant for unscripted television. “A show exactly like Masked Singer.”
Reality competition shows nearly all have been thrown into disarray by the virus, which has halted the live spectacle on which these shows rely.
After suspending production for a month, ABC’S American Idol has just picked it up again but with the top 20 contestants recording performances from their homes and panellists judging from theirs.
NBC’S The Voice has been forced to retool its un-shot final episodes.
And producers of America’s Got Talent haven’t shot its final rounds, leaving the show in limbo; many of its performers need a full stage, something they’re unlikely to find in their basements.
What makes The Masked Singer’s success even more surprising is its noisy tone runs counter to television’s current trend of intimate, stripped-down musical performances.
“If you had to predict which show was going to do well when the
Living Room concert and all that began, Masked Singer would be one of the last you’d choose,” said one executive at a rival network.
The coronavirus has been one more challenge for a broadcast-television sector beset by them. Yet The Masked Singer is proving adept at avoiding virus problems, like it has many of the others.
With a 25 per cent increase among adults 18-49 and a 26 per cent increase in average total viewers this season, The Masked Singer has the largest increases in both categories of any show on network television.
Only ABC’S firefighter drama Station 19, has double-digit growth in both categories.
About nine million people per week watch The Masked Singer, attracting a surprisingly youthful audience. The show has drawn more adults ages 18 to 49 than any other show in 2019-2020 by a margin nearly 50 per cent greater than its nearest competitor The Bachelor.
Part of The Masked Singer’s coronavirus-era success, experts say, is a function of schedule momentum. The show experienced no delays; it was able to wrap its entire season by the end of February, thanks to an accelerated schedule that has it shooting three episodes each week. The show began taping in December to make a deadline for a post-super Bowl slot Feb. 2 and barely slowed down until it wrapped by the end of that month, before states imposed stayat-home rules.
During a recent episode, the only hint the world had changed came from a brief voice-over recorded later by host Nick Cannon. “While you’re safer at home, our singers’ secrets are safer with us,” he said.
Also important is the show’s PRECOVID-19 vibe.
“One of the things that made The Masked Singer appealing when it first came on was its ridiculousness, its ludicrous fun, its masterpiece stupidity,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture and television historian at Syracuse University. “And I think one of the things that makes it appealing now is that it doesn’t have any of the melancholy or sincere piano tinkling of so many other shows and every other commercial on TV. People watch all of those and can’t wait to get back to the dancing llamas.”