SAS: Who Dares Wins star Ant Middleton has been dealt a ‘major blow’ after receiving bad news about a spin-off of the Channel 4 series.
The military training programme, which started back in 2015, sees ordinary people and celebrities facing tough endurance tasks to prove their mettle to Ant and the show’s other chief instructors.
Ant was involved with the Channel 4 show between 2015 and 2021 but hasn’t appeared since then, instead focusing on the spin-off SAS Australia.
SAS Australia started in 2020 and looked set to continue with a fifth season in 2025, with Ant promising that the series ‘will be coming back’ amid rumours of casting calls.
However, sources have claimed that the fifth season may never reach TV after discussions and negotiations between Screentime and Channel Seven in Australia apparently broke down.
It’s reportedly come as a surprise that no filming will have been completed for season five before the end of 2024, and the show was apparently absent from Channel Seven’s 2025 line-up announcement.
Its rumoured cancellation has come as a surprise after 1.85 million people tuned in to watch the 2023 finale (equivalent to almost five million viewers in the UK).
According to MailOnline, insiders have indicated that the show’s future may lie elsewhere, with Australia’s Channel Nine apparently showing interest.
But negotiations and interest offer no guarantees, and production on a fifth season apparently fizzling out behind the scenes is a major blow to SAS Australia’s future.
And it appears to go against all indications that Ant gave about the series earlier this year, when it seemed certain a fifth season would be greelint.
He told Yahoo Lifestyle back in August: ‘Of course we’re coming back, SAS Australia’s gone nowhere. You’ve heard it from the horse’s mouth.
‘We just need to make sure we’ve got the right cast, that we’ve got the right location, and with SAS Australia you can’t rush it.’
He continued: ‘You can’t just go, “Right, we need to do it every year” because it’s about getting things right, it’s about keeping it authentic and keeping it real and keeping it raw.
‘We need the right cast, we need the right location, and we need the right production company on board.’
Ant had previously told The Express that a fifth season of SAS Australia was very much in his plans, with his personal search for a new cast apparently under way.
‘I’ve already got a few names in mind. [Actor] James Stewart, or [singer] Samantha Jade – she’s like a little pocket rocket. I can just picture her going full throttle.’
A seventh series of the original British version of the show has been commissioned by Channel 4, with filming already having taken place in Wales over the summer of 2024.
Metro.co.uk has contacted Ant Middleton for comment.
Watch SAS: Who Dares Wins on Channel 4.
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