The YouGov.co.uk website is a Survey website (and app) that is constantly collecting data, on all kinds of topics, from anyone that cares to sign up and complete polls. It’s pretty much like sites like Ranker – but on a much bigger scale and looked at by Government departments and businesses to understand trends on all aspects of British society.
In this August post I looked at the section collecting data on Comedians, to the end of Q2 (to 30th June 2025).
Couple of observations that I made in the earlier post – for this report they don’t say how many people they have collected data from and we also don’t know whether they are fans of comedy – or humourless grumps!
The thing that perhaps irritates the most is that the term “comedian” is also a bit fast and loose. Many of the people listed are comedic actors/actresses – but they are not comedians (stand ups). To be more representative of tastes I would have preferred those groups to be separated, plus an indication of how many people submitted data.
The only age bands represented are:
- Baby Boomers – 1946 to 1964
- Generation X – 1965 to 1980
- Millennials – 1981 to 2000
Plus, there are additional filters of All responses – or split by Male / Female.
The question about comedians (I’m guessing) is “who on the list are you aware of” (which translates to Fame) and “do you like them” (which gives a Popularity score). Both of those filters show a Ranking position and a %age score.
The Methodology used is described here and a Ratings FAQ here, but not much help for my purpose. Especially as it says “Our data mirrors the demographics of Great Britain and is weighted to be nationally representative”
I didn’t look at the end of Q3 and the data has now been removed. You can view data from the end of Q4 (which is basically 2025 year-end) – here.
Across all of the tables below I’ve used two colours:
- Gold – 95-100% percentage scores / Top 5 for Fame
- Silver – 90-94% percentage scores – 6-10 for Fame
Popularity Percentage
When set to All the Number 1 for Popularity is Billy Connolly – but even he can only manage 72%.
The %ages for Gen X and Men are close enough to be just about static. With the exception of Millennials, the other %ages are up.
For me this immediately shows up a flaw in the data model, when you consider this drop of 18%. This clearly shows that a completely different group of people have taken this survey and the “weighting” has not been able to balance out the numbers.
In order to ascertain whether this was a change in attitude you would really need to have the same group answering in both Quarters.
Logically I would say if someone had, for example, “been cancelled” then you would see a fall across MORE of the groups. Having just one age group drop looks suspicious.
I think, personally, the Popularity scores are not really worth looking at. When viewing “All” Ricky Gervais came 10th with 58%.
As anyone that has looked at my previous published statistics would know (here) the UK’s 2 biggest comedians are Ricky and Jimmy (in turns of tickets sold, viewing figures on Netflix, views on YouTube, industry clout, TV work, awards etc. etc.). That this doesn’t feed through into YouGov just means that the group that answered this poll (however many it was) were not fans of them – or possibly not even comedy fans.
Popularity Ranking
This Millennial anomaly then feeds through into the Popularity Ranking. As above – ignore this data.
Fame Percentage
This first table image shows Fame by %age. Even though some of the poll respondents did not seem to be fans – they certainly know who Jimmy is (apart from another blip with Gen X, which I also am very sceptical of).
Again, dropping from 90% to 55% this clearly shows that a completely different group of people have taken this survey. And I cannot believe that they have somehow avoided knowing his name.
For the past almost 25 years he’s barely been off the TV and, in recent years, is on some channel or other every single night. Plus, the video clips that are all over YouTube and all the other social platforms.
Regardless of how YouGov have “weighted” the results it does not make any sense at all.
I’ll save the Top 10 list “for posterity” as the data will vanish in 3 months:
- Jimmy Carr – 98%
- Alan Carr – 97%
- David Walliams – 97%
- Ricky Gervais – 97%
- Peter Kay – 96%
- Harry Hill – 94%
- Michael McIntyre – 93%
- Miranda Hart – 92%
- Lenny Henry – 91%
- Jo Brand – 91%
I’m surprised to see Miranda and Lenny in the Top 10 as neither of them have been on TV for years.
Fame Ranking
The Top 10 names for the Fame Ranking list are exactly the same as the list above.
But there is more nonsense going on here (when I filtered on Millennials) as Kevin Hart is listed at number 7, Chappelle at 57, Bill Burr at 68, Louis CK at 76, George Burns at 80. I thought this was supposed to be British Comedians (it’s a UK site) and they are all American.
Conclusion?
Take it all with a pinch of salt.
Too many unknown variables to draw any conclusions from it. An hour of my life that I’ll never get back…
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