Investigating Audience Preferences Within the Hybrid Competitive-Comedic Format of Taskmaster UK

This dataset and code repository accompanies the research paper which was submitted to PLOS ONE. The repository contains:- Complete research data (IMDb ratings, task metadata, contestant demographics, sentiment analysis)- All analysis code for figure generation and statistical modeling - LaTeX manuscript sources and compiled PDFs- PLOS ONE submission materials including figures The study analyzes 154 episodes across 18 series of Taskmaster UK (2015-2023) to understand how competitive mechanics, performer characteristics, and emotional content influence audience engagement. Key findings include that contestant attributes (age, experience) are stronger predictors of viewer ratings than competitive scoring dynamics, and that 16/18 series follow Rising or J-shaped rating trajectories. All data sources are publicly available and the complete analysis pipeline is included for full reproducibility of the research findings.