Olly Alexander

Tik Tok is targeting older viewers

Olly Alexander and Ian McKellen

It was 2020’s most downloaded app and is hugely popular with young audiences. No wonder broadcasters want to know how they can use TikTok to their best advantage.

According to TikTok’s European strategy manager Edward Lindeman, the short-form video platform which started off as lip-synching app Music.ly, now has 100 million monthly active users in Europe.

But to grow further, it is targeting older audiences with traditional TV talent using the app such as Gordon Ramsay and Dan Walker.

Channel 4 releases first teaser for It’s a Sin

Russell T Davies with the cast of It's a Sin (credit: Channel 4)

Written by Russell T Davies (A Very English Scandal), the series follows a group of queer men in 1980s London set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis.

Olly Alexander plays 18-year-old Ritchie Tozer, a youngster beginning a new life in London. There he meets the unassuming Colin (Callum Scott Howells) and party boy Roscoe (Omari Douglas) and the trio form a close friendship.

Russell T Davies creates new drama for Channel 4

Russel T Davies and the cast of Boys (Credit: Channel 4)

Beginning in 1981 and tracking through the decade, Boys charts three young men discovering and celebrating their gay identity in the backdrop of the devastating AIDS crisis.

The five-part series stars singer Olly Alexander from the band Years and Years as 18-year-old Ritchie Tozer. As Tozer begins a new life in London, he meets party boy Roscoe (Omari Douglas) and the unassuming Colin (Callum Scott Howells), two fellow gay men who soon become his closest friends.