Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild – 2023 Series

About New Lives in the Wild

Returning for its new series, adventurer Ben Fogle set off to meet more people who have turned their back on the rat­race and set up home in remote locations in the UK and beyond in Ben Fogle: New Lives In The Wild. We watched as Ben joined a variety of brave individuals who chose to venture down a very alternative path to everyday life: from a former American professional sports­star who now lives in his own mountain cabin and a junk artist who found solace in an o ff­grid desert community to a Hollywood actress who’s swapped the bright lights for a horse sanctuary in Uruguay. Throughout the 12 ­part series, Ben seeks to discover the motivation and reality of abandoning a life dominated by debts and daily grind in search of something different.

PR Overview

tpr media was delighted to promote Renegade Picture’s successful series Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild for the second time. We began working in December 2022 with the first episode confirmed to air on Channel 5 on the 3rd January 2023. We carried out a high­visibility campaign across TV and radio, broadsheets and midmarket tabloids.

Overall there were a total of 670 pieces of coverage between 3 January ­ 4 April across national and regional press, radio, TV and listings magazines. The programme regularly topped viewing stats with 1.1­1.5 million weekly viewers (according to Broadcast Now). The sum of opportunities to see (OTS) was 380M and advertising value equivalent (AVE) was £9.04M (these figures only account for print and online press and don't include TV and radio).

Initially Channel 5 confirmed a seven episode run of the series, this then extended to 9, then an additional 3 ‘return’ episodes were added running up until 4th April. There was also a two week gap between episode 9 and 12. Changes in scheduling posed a few obvious issues when giving notice to press and securing previews.

TV and radio highlights from the campaign included ITV’s This Morning interviewing Ben Fogle live in the studio with Phil and Holly. Ben and contributors Mike Basich and Chris Lewis were all interviewed on Times Radio on separate occasions throughout the run. Producers Natalie Wilkinson and Sean McDonnell were interviewed together on BBC Radio London’s Jo Good Show at the beginning of the series and Chris Lewis was interviewed towards the end.

National features included an interview feature with Ben in The Mirror at the start of the series. The Mirror Online also ran a feature on George and Sophie and Lyndon and Ruth following interviews with both the couples; this ran in print in The Sunday People. The Sun ran an online piece about contributor DNA and the Metro shared an article on Pirate Rob. The Mail Online ran weekly features for each episode including exclusive clips in advance of the programme, This is Money and WhatsNews2day also shared the Mail Online articles. Radio Times online ran a feature on the first episode with exclusive clips. There were also some strong regional features on individual contributors.

Reviews throughout the series were extremely positive in publications including The Sun, Radio Times, The Times and Daily Mail. See selection on page 27. As well as this, there were over 600 national and regional previews and listings of the series across broadsheet, mid­market and tabloid outlets. Please see a small selection of highlights from this series’ campaign in the following pages.

This Morning – Monday 6th February

Radio

Times Radio: Ben was interviewed on The Hugo Rifkind Show about the upcoming episode on Pirate Rob, living off­grid and Antarctica. Contributor Mike Basich was interviewed on The Hugo Rifkind Show at the start of the series ahead of his episode. Contributor Chris Lewis was also interviewed on the Ed Vaizey show at the end of the series

BBC Radio London: Producers Natalie Wilkinson and Sean McDonnell were interviewed on BBC Radio London’s Jo Good Show at the beginning of the series discussing the past 17 series and how they find contributors.

Contributor Chris Lewis was interviewed for over 10 minutes on the Jo Good Show, they played a clip from the show and discussed his journey.

National Features

2/01/23 (Print and Online) ­ Article by Chief Feature Writer, Emily Retter, following phone interview with Ben Fogle.