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Channel 5 general discussion

(revised repeat) (February 2016)

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TT
TellyTime
Bother’s Bar Stool Pigeon for October 2019 has thrown up:

Quote:
Comedy Central under Ben Frow is cancelling all UK shows, all of them. Roast Battle‘s just been announced as recommissioned but they’ve actually already filmed it. The channel is likely to be an imports only channel.


Which is a massive shame if true, as I think the channel has a nice collection of original TV series at the moment.

http://www.bothersbar.co.uk/?p=12620


Probably best to wait for a reliable source before reading too much into this.

Comedy Central UK has offered a decent slate of UK commissions in the past like Roast Battle, Your Face or Mine, Stand Up Central, The Chris Ramsey Show, Russell Howard & Mum, Drunk History etc and it would be a great shame to lose these.
LL
London Lite Founding member
I suspect Comedie+, the Canal pay channel is mandated to provide a certain amount of French output. There's also joint commissions with C8 for comedy shows.

Comedie+ also shows US imports such as Mom and Saturday Night Live, but is predominantly French.

30 days later

AS
Ash101
Seems there was some truth in this rumour about Ben Frow and Comedy Central. Although, looks like it’s only a temporary hiatus while he reviews the output and they are “fully expected to restart commissioning” once he’s done.

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcasters/commissioning-hiatus-at-comedy-central/5144902.article
LL
London Lite Founding member
I was hoping Ben may transfer Russell Howard and Mum Globetrotters to Channel 5, it'd fit in with their travelogue formats.
JO
Jonwo
I was hoping Ben may transfer Russell Howard and Mum Globetrotters to Channel 5, it'd fit in with their travelogue formats.


Doesn't Russell Howard have a deal with Sky now rather than Comedy Central?

I think it'd more cost effective to have Channel 5 co-commission new shows with Comedy Central. They've invested heavily into drama and I think once that is established on the channel, comedy would be the next step.
Last edited by Jonwo on 22 November 2019 1:05am
LL
London Lite Founding member
Jonwo posted:
I was hoping Ben may transfer Russell Howard and Mum Globetrotters to Channel 5, it'd fit in with their travelogue formats.


Isn't Russell Howard have a deal with Sky now rather than Comedy Central?

I think it'd more cost effective to have Channel 5 co-commission new shows with Comedy Central. They've invested heavily into drama and I think once that is established on the channel, comedy would be the next step.


He's been either filming Russell Howard and Mum or the Russell Howard Hour in the same year, so doubt it's an exclusive deal.

However, I think all of his shows have been produced by Avalon from Good News to his stage shows who are also his management.
SW
Steve Williams
Jonwo posted:
I think it'd more cost effective to have Channel 5 co-commission new shows with Comedy Central. They've invested heavily into drama and I think once that is established on the channel, comedy would be the next step.


They've done this before - a decade ago C5 commissioned a number of sitcoms, like Suburban Shootout, Respectable (the last thing the distinguished comedy producer Harry Thompson wrote before he died, shown posthumously) and Angelo's by Sharon Horgan, and they were all co-commissioned with Paramount Comedy, as was, with C5 showing them first. But it didn't last very long and indeed when Angelo's was being broadcast C5 announced they weren't doing any more scripted comedy.

And a decade before that, most of their early comedy shows like The Comedy Store, Festival of Fun and We Know Where You Live (the sketch show now only remembered for its amazing cast of Fiona Allen, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Amanda Holden and Simon Pegg) were also co-commissioned with Paramount and shown on both.

There were no sitcoms in that first batch and I remember William Phillips in Broadcast reviewing their first year on air and saying "we have yet to shudder at Channel Five's first sitcom".

There's nothing stopping them having success with comedy, they just need the right show that stands out. I always mention Celebrity Juice as before that ITV2 had pretty much no comedy but that took off, was very distinctive (I'm not saying it's any good) and ITV2 were suddenly in the comedy business with a genre that it could own. That's the kind of thing C5 needs to do, the problem with their previous comedy output is that it's often been perfectly good but not at all distinctive so pretty much ignored, and they need find a style or genre that they can specialise in. Of course a few years ago C5 did the most blatant rip-off of Celebrity Juice.
FA
fanoftv
Boarderland that aired a couple of years ago was a well written scripted comedy with good characters, it was a shame that viewers didn’t connect to it.
J4
j4ever24
they also had impractical jokers uk but that was not well received i enjoyed it
LN
LondonNewsBites
Milkshake sometimes shows its old stings from 2005. I don't know if its wrong... 🤔
SL
Slocker
Maybe they are going back to the old logo
LN
LondonNewsBites
Highly impossible!
Maybe they are going back to the old logo

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