Graham Norton has reflected on the failure of his flagship reality show The Neighbourhood. Norton made a rare venture into reality TV with the ITV series, which centred on a fictional street where different real-life households must compete to be named the most popular and win £250,000 to share. The series was poised to be a big hit, with the broadcaster heavily publicising The Neighbourhood in the lead-up to its April 2026 premiere.
The launch was also given a coveted time slot, airing in the middle of the two-part I’m A Celebrity… South Africa final. Despite the heavy push by ITV, however, Norton has now admitted that the series “bombed”. In an interview with The Times, the chat show host said he “felt bad” over its underperformance.
Only weeks after its launch, The Neighbourhood was pulled from its primetime 9pm viewing slot and regulated to a later start time of 10.45pm. The news came amid reports in The Sun that viewership of the show had dwindled to just 500,000 viewers by its third episode. The flop would have come as a blow to the broadcaster, who likely would have been hoping that The Neighbourhood might soar to levels of popularity attained by the BBC with The Traitors and its celebrity spin-off.
In a three-star review, The Independent’s Katie Rosseinsky compared the series – somewhat unfavourably – to The Traitors. Plan auto-renews until cancelled. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.
Elsewhere in the Times interview, Norton said he “never takes the chat show for granted” in light of last year’s news that The Graham Norton Show has been renewed for three more years. Thank you very much, but we’ve enjoyed you enough now.’ So we’re very grateful it still has an audience.” He also gave readers an insight into his personal life, revealing that he and his husband Jono McLeod share a secret dog.
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