Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Media By Heather McLean
Monday, December 15, 2025 - 12:57
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On Channel 5's NFL: Big Game Night, Dermot O'Leary, Sam Quek and Osi Umenyiora host the coverage, which includes a play-along entertainment format aimed at family audiences
British broadcaster Channel 5's new Big Game Night programme is a mash up of live NFL games, comedy and entertainment, in a studio-based gameshow format. It sounds mad, and perhaps it is, but viewers are flocking to the programme and making it a core part of their Sunday night TV ritual, according to Channel 5 commissioning editor for non-scripted UK originals Daniel Louw.
Earlier this year, Channel 5 and Paramount UK announced a major new multi-year partnership with the NFL and CBS Sports to bring live coverage of the NFL season free-to-air to UK viewers.
Every week throughout the NFL season, two Sunday evening games are being broadcast, the first at 6pm on 5 and the second at 9pm on 5Action, which has been branded as 5NFL for game nights, with both games also streamed live. The broadcaster is also set to show the Super Bowl free-to-air in the UK.
On NFL: Big Game Night, Dermot O'Leary, Sam Quek and Osi Umenyiora host the coverage, which includes a play-along entertainment format aimed at family audiences.
Speaking to SVG Europe, Louw says: While we do have some pedigree on NFL, this time round, partly through discussions with CBS, there was an opportunity to potentially do something big and interesting and different.
We've been doing a lot more sport the last year or so; we've done the Club World Cup, we've done various bits of snooker and boxing and we're looking to do more of that. When this opportunity [for NFL: Big Game Night show] came along, I was asked, what would you do if Channel Five were to try to offer something that's basically a bit different from the Sky Sports coverage, which is catering much more to the kind of hardcore NFL fan? . And I thought it's an interesting challenge.
Hungry Bear Media, the entertainment production company behind Michael McIntyre's The Wheel and Big Show and Gladiators, is behind Channel 5's Big Game Night
Now for something different
To do something truly different, Louw spoke to Hungry Bear Media, the entertainment production company behind Michael McIntyre's The Wheel and Big Show and Gladiators. He notes: I wanted to speak to at least one company who have never done anything quite like this before, and that ended up being Hungry Bear. Lo and behold, they got the gig because they were pitching something that is so significantly different to anything that I had heard in the sports arena before.
Louw notes that US-style sports shows are becoming much more prevalent and interesting to viewers. I think also we're living in an age where, I wouldn't say the rule book is being ripped up, but sports coverage is changing quite a lot, continues Louw.
You have RedZone on the NFL, which is now becoming almost as big of product as the live games themselves. And then you've got Golazo [CBS Sports Golazo Network, a 24 hour D2C streaming network dedicated exclusively to soccer coverage]. I think Golazo on CBS is not so fundamentally different from what you might see on Soccer Saturday on Sky, but I think generally it's pushing towards a direction that people are starting to watch sports a bit differently; they're starting to watch multiple games at once rather than what we were doing before, so the slightly more static, discursive, analytical version of sports is still going to be around, but I feel like we're moving into an area where it's just kind a bit more sort of hyped, a bit more frenetic. And Big Game Night is a little bit of an attempt to try and harness that kind of energy.
On the American penchant for showmanship and entertainment during its live games, be they NFL, baseball or hockey, Louw says, TV broadcast is beginning to replicate this in-stadium experience, and as much as it's frenetic, it's filling the gaps [in play] very well .
He goes on: That's what we thought Big Game Night could do. The barrier to entry for a lot of people for the NFL really is that they think, oh it is not for me, it's too stop start . We thought, well what if we make the stops as good as the starts, or make people potentially tune in for [the stops] as well? . And that's effectively the spirit in which [the programme] was created. When Hungry Bear First suggested that, I thought, I haven't heard that idea before, but it does feel like it's in the spirit of the game.
US-style sports shows are becoming much more prevalent and interesting to British viewers according to Channel 5's commissioning editor, Daniel Louw
Feeding a hungry bear
Hungry Bear has proven to be the right choice for this programme, notes Louw: Fundamentally, I was interested in talking to them just because everyone I know who's worked with them has had a really great experience. People said that they're creative and people told me that they'd never stop coming up with ideas, and that has turned out to be true. So it was a good opportunity to start a new relationship.
I'd never met anyone at Hungry Bear before, and now we've done probably about 120-plus hours of live broadcasting together and there'll probably be about another 40 to 50-odd more before the end of the Super Bowl, adds Louw. So I've spent a lot of time in the trenches with these guys now, and it's been a lot of fun. It's been a learning experience, but their freshness and apparent lack of experience in this area was something that was attractive. But they've learned quickly and they've hired the right people.
Once Hungry Bear
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Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Media By Heather McLean 
