Video Interview with Let It Shine’s Gary Barlow & Guy Freeman

Take That’s Gary Barlow, creator of Let It Shine, and Guy Freeman, BBC Studios’ editor for formats and special events, tell TV Formats about the new talent competition.

Three months before the official opening of the musical The Band, the show had already raked in £10 million in ticket sales. The anticipation is a testament to the continued popularity of the British pop act Take That, whose songs are featured in the musical. Naturally, the stage show required a boy band, so Take That’s own Gary Barlow teamed with Guy Freeman, BBC Studios’ editor for formats and special events, to conceive a new talent competition. Let It Shine, which aired on BBC One earlier this year, auditioned thousands of aspiring singers, placing the most talented into boy bands that then competed for the audience’s votes.

BBC Worldwide is now shopping the concept to broadcasters across the globe eager for a new spin on the perennially popular talent-competition format. As Barlow tells TV Formats, his firsthand experience as a member of a boy band played a major role in how the format was devised. A veteran live entertainment producer, Freeman worked with Barlow to come up with the format structure for Let It Shine.