How Dizplai helped ITV’s I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked reach 82% of young viewers through live audience participation
Key insights
- I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked became ITV’s highest-rated entertainment show of 2024, with Dizplai’s audience participation infrastructure at the heart of the format
- The show achieved 82% viewership among the 16-34 demographic, making it ITV’s most-watched programme among young viewers that year
- Dizplai integrated real-time UGC from WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram into a single moderated production workflow, letting producers surface fan content live on air
- Live poll integration from the show’s app created a genuine second screen experience, giving viewers a direct way to influence the content as it happened
- The format demonstrated how companion shows can move beyond passive viewing to become fully interactive audience participation experiences at broadcast scale
See how Dizplai built the audience participation infrastructure behind ITV’s I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked, integrating real-time UGC from WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter alongside live poll data to make the companion show ITV’s highest-rated entertainment programme of 2024.
What ITV needed: a companion show format that gave young viewers a reason to participate
Following its rebrand, I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked had a clear ambition: to move beyond the traditional companion show format and create something that a younger, digitally native audience would actively want to be part of. That meant making audience input a genuine part of the broadcast rather than a decorative social media add-on, and doing it at the pace and quality that live television demands. The production team needed a way to capture, moderate, and display fan content from multiple platforms in real time, without disrupting the broadcast flow.
How Dizplai built real-time audience participation infrastructure for I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked
Dizplai built the audience participation workflow behind the show, integrating live UGC from WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram into a single moderated feed that producers could work from in real time. Fan voice notes, social media posts, and reactions were surfaced directly on screen through bespoke broadcast graphics, giving the hosts genuine live material to respond to rather than reading out pre-selected messages between segments.
Alongside the social integration, Dizplai built real-time poll functionality connected to the show’s app, creating a true second screen experience where viewers watching on their phones could simultaneously influence what appeared on the TV broadcast. The combination gave the audience two routes to participate, and gave the show a continuous stream of fan-driven content that made every episode feel different.
The results: ITV’s highest-rated entertainment show of 2024 and 82% reach among 16-34s
The partnership successfully delivered impressive results, demonstrating how traditional TV formats can be reimagined for modern audience expectations, leading to:
- I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked became ITV’s highest-rated entertainment show of 2024
- The show achieved 82% viewership among the 16-34 demographic, making it ITV’s most-watched programme for young viewers that year
- The audience participation model demonstrated how companion formats can move beyond passive viewing to become genuinely interactive at broadcast scale, with implications for how ITV approaches companion content going forwardudience engagement.
FAQs
Dizplai built the audience participation infrastructure for I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked, integrating real-time UGC from WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram into a single moderated production workflow. Producers could surface fan voice notes, reactions, and social posts directly on air through broadcast graphics, while live poll integration from the show’s app gave the audience a direct way to influence the content as it happened.
I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked is ITV’s companion show to I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, designed as a more interactive, audience-driven format aimed at younger viewers. Rather than traditional punditry, the show was built around fan participation, with audience submissions and real-time polls shaping the content of each episode.
Dizplai’s approach connects the audience’s preferred social platforms into a single backstage moderation workflow. Producers review incoming submissions from WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter in real time, then approve and publish selected content through broadcast graphics that appear on screen during the live show. The result is a broadcast that reflects genuine audience sentiment as the episode unfolds, rather than pre-packaged responses.
Dizplai integrated live poll functionality from the I’m a Celebrity app directly into the broadcast. Viewers watching on their phones could respond to polls that fed directly into the on-screen content, creating a genuine connection between what the audience was doing on their second screen and what appeared on the main broadcast. The two channels, social UGC and in-app polling, gave viewers multiple ways to feel part of the show simultaneously.
Yes. The I’m a Celebrity…Unpacked model shows what’s possible when audience participation is built into the format from the ground up rather than added as an afterthought. Dizplai has delivered similar infrastructure for a range of broadcasters and media networks, and the approach adapts across entertainment formats, sports companion shows, and news programming depending on the audience and editorial objectives.
Want to read more about how we’ve used similar WhatsApp and social UGC mechanics in a broadcaster context? Check out our Sky Sports News and Crufts case studies
- Tags: Media Networks
