Aimee Walker
It’s A Sin, the new five-part series by Russell T Davies, is officially Channel 4’s most-binged new TV box set on All 4.
Chronicling the lives of gay friends living in London during the ’80s Aids crisis, the show has garnered over 6.5 million views on All 4. It’s now become the streamer’s biggest ever instant box set hit.
All 4’s chief content officer Ian Katz said: “The extraordinary performance of It’s A Sin is a reminder that powerful drama with something important to say about the world can also be commercially successful.
“It has also demonstrated how our strategy of box-setting shows on All 4 can bring a greater combined linear and digital audience to a show than a traditional release pattern.
“It’s been a key driver of All 4 viewing in a month that has seen our digital viewing on our own platforms up by more than 90 per cent compared to the same period last year.”
The hit show’s first episode even managed to achieve the platform’s biggest drama launch on record.
The streaming service recorded that it had its highest number of monthly viewers ever in January 2021. This was a whopping 91 per cent increase from January 2020.
Despite the show’s mass success, it has come to many people’s surprise that the series was almost never made at all.
In an interview with Pink News, Davies said his script was originally turned down by the BBC, ITV and surprisingly Channel 4 at first.
Due to the nature of the show, Davies said it was a ‘hard sell’.
He commented: “It’s about people dying. It’s a tough piece of work.”
Thankfully, Channel 4’s commissioning editor of drama, Lee Mason, saw its potential.
Originally, Davies had planned for it to be made into an eight-part series. However, he was told by Channel 4 it should be whittled down to five instead.
The show has been praised online by celebs such as Graham Norton, who dubbed it ‘the best five hours of television I’ve seen in years’.
Nigella Lawson pitched, adding the show made her feel ‘lost for words’. She then hailed it as a ‘masterpiece’.
On Instagram, Elton John wrote that the show was ‘a triumph of creativity and humanity’.
Featured Image Credit: Channel 4
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