TV should “move with the times”, take risks and be less “polished” in order to attract younger audiences, the TikTok star Grace Keeling has said.
Record numbers of young viewers are switching off traditional television in favour of short-form content, according to the media regulator, Ofcom, with Enders Analysis suggesting a 30% decline in 16- to 34-year-olds watching TV shows with their parents over the last 10 years.
Keeling – who goes by the name GK Barry online and achieved fame during lockdown – said that if television kept “reusing the same sort of people and formats” then people would get bored.
The 24-year-old is being billed as the next Stacey Dooley and has 3.5 million TikTok followers, a chart-topping podcast called Saving Grace, and has made appearances on shows including Channel 4’s Stand Up to Cancer and BBC One’s The Wheel. She thinks TV should tap into why social media creators are popular with young people.
She said: “We’re very authentic … there’s nothing people don’t know [about us]. I think people are enjoying that a little bit more than when you see these sort of very polished and formatted things.
“If you want to bring a younger generation over to TV, which can be a bit of a struggle, you need to get people like me on who they know, and they know what they’re going to get.”
Keeling – who cites Miranda Hart and Louis Theroux as influences – said for audiences it was “refreshing to see something that’s different”. She said some people in TV were “very set in their routine” and reluctant to change the popular presenters they already had.
She added: “It’s difficult when you come from social media, a lot of people don’t want to take a chance on you. But you have to move with the times – if you keep reusing the same sort of people and formats then I guess, at some point, people will get bored a bit.”
She said younger audiences often wanted more authenticity, and she cited Rylan Clark and Rob Rinder’s travel series as a “refreshing” example.
“A lot of travel series talk about how amazing everything is. Rylan just goes in there and goes: ‘That’s quite boring. I don’t see the point of that.’ That’s refreshing to have someone say what everyone’s thinking.
“But a lot of people don’t want to ruffle feathers. Obviously, you never want to offend anyone. But if you think something’s boring, you’re entitled to say. It’s good to watch and it’s funnier as well.”
She said social media was helping to democratise TV by providing opportunities to people with different backgrounds. “It’s like a show reel … and you don’t have that preconception of someone just reading your CV. You show your full self and if you’re good you can get a job from that.”
Keeling, who is from a working-class background in Cambridgeshire, said she thought she would, “have to look a certain way” to succeed in TV but social media had made it acceptable to be on screen and “be normal … you can have acne!”
She added: “I wish I had someone like that when I was younger, because I grew up so insecure, thinking I’ll probably never get a chance to be in that industry because of what I look like and who I am.”
She said on-screen representation was important to empower young women. “I grew up [with] a narrative of girls aren’t funny. I only knew about three female comedians … so I wanted to come into this space and make it known that women are funny.”
Keeling studied film-making at university but found it was “very male” and she questioned continuing in such a male-dominated career.
She still finds it “quite difficult” dealing with the trolling she receives and thinks technology companies should introduce ID checks for new accounts.
Keeling recently completed a sell out UK live tour of Saving Grace, with another planned and one in Australia. Also on the horizon is a new TV series she cannot yet talk about, but she wants to discuss “taboo subjects” and interview people with “crazy careers”.
