ITV axe sitcoms

“Hmmm, I want to watch something funny tonight. I know, i’ll watch Coronation Street for a laugh”

Bad Move and Birds of a feather were not my cup of tea so I'm not surprised they were axed.

ITV is not known for having a packed comedy schedule, so if they had a big sitcom commission in mind, something would probably have to give. It's also not unreasonable to suggest that something like Birds of a Feather (working class, studio based sitcom) fits the same profile as Mrs Browns Boys.



Why unlikely? Seems perfectly reasonable to me. Highly popular, incredibly commercial and not owned by the Beeb.



I'm a fan of Mrs Brown's Boys and hate the snobbery aimed at it, but it's undeniably a brash, lowbrow comedy and in my view sits far better alongside the sort of programming you'd see Ant & Dec or Paul O'Grady front. It's certainly "the people's comedy" in the same way ITV sees itself as "the people's channel".

Mrs Brown is fast running out of steam in any case. Only two episodes a year and each year it rates lower than the last.

Of course this show also shows how thin on the ground sitcoms are on BBC One as well, which had a much richer history of sitcom than ITV (The article linked to in post 1 was hailing On The Buses as the best example of hit ITV comedy!).

Always keeping it's slot on Christmas Day which no sign of anything toppling it, and also the fact that the NYD episode of the sitcom was actually the last sitcom BBC One showed to date.

I didn't know you had such power.

The cost of a sitcom is something I'd be interested in - it's surely much cheaper than the money they have to spend on drama nowadays with just as good a chance at decent ratings as, and probably more repeat value too

Best (unintentional) comedy on ITV at the moment is Gemma Collins still on Dancing On Ice. What a big joke. Has to be the biggest fix for that heffalump to be on our screens. Useless. Absolutely useless.

Maybe they should put the dancers with the lowest score up against the couple with the lowest votes for the skate off, rather than the two couples with the lowest votes, maybe then that would stop her being voted back in every week.

Would make it pointless though when the judges have the final vote. She'll be gone soon enough.

Why would they want to do that?

I'm sure sitcoms will be back in fashion in due course; gameshows practically fell out of fashion after the turn of the century (if not totally out of the schedule):



I have no doubt the sitcom format will return at some point, however it probably doesn't help when certain sitcoms run forever and a day despite having gone off the boil years ago (My Family was guilty of this, especially in the years after Kris Marshall left. Mrs Brown's Boys, as above, is on its last legs effectively). The more successful sitcoms over the years seem to have followed the Fawlty Towers model, ie capping a series at six episodes and usually (with exceptions) running for two series.

Mrs Brown's Boys is a co-pro between BBC Scotland, BocPix and RTE so it's unlikely to move to ITV and I think Brendan O'Caroll wouldn't want to betray the BBC since they gave him his big break



I think it depend on the sitcom, a single camera comedy likely is more expensive than say a multicamera show or a panel show. Drama I think while it costs more is likely a lot easier to sell abroad than a comedy where humour is subjective

BBC has had a good number of ideas for comedy like Good night sweetheart but went for some crap remake