Yus, My Dear (1976) London Weekend Sitcom

The New Statesman still holds up too, in my opinion.

A comedy that I never got into.

There are lots of decent ITV sitcoms but a lot fewer that hold up that well today, not that they get shown except on Forces TV. A lot of the ones from the 70s are a little crass now and a lot from the 80s are a bit twee and bland. They kind of gave up after that.

That applies to the BBCs output too but they have more absolute repeatable classics.

Thinking about it (and this is just a theory) a lot of ITV's most successful sitcoms were based around situations that were unusual at the time but now are fairly commonplace. They were often about generational or cultural clashes, or new modern circumstances....

A black family moving in next door
A single man sharing a house with two single girls
A man who's a single parent to a teenage girl
A man who's wife is an executive
An unmarried couple living together

They're all very situations that no one gives a fig about any more so the hook has gone. There are ones that are contemporary but fairly timeless: Bless This House, Rising Damp, Shelley, Never The Twain, After Henry are ones that spring to mind. The New Statesman too despite being fairly topical it was also quite cartoony

The BBCs most popular sitcoms are more timeless concepts, many are period pieces, some are contemporary but more cartoony. There are some bad and bland ones too but they didn't go so much for the culture-clash situation, the major exception being probably The Good Life



Incidently, going back to LWT, they were responsible for one of the best sitcoms ever - Spaced

That is a brilliant theory Inspector Sands. Had never thought of ITV’s preoccupation with the ‘unusual’ situations of the day. Hard to think of any BBC sitcoms which had those premises (perhaps they’ve been crowded-out of our collective memories by the absolute classics like Fawlty Towers, Porridge etc).

I think the "unusual situations" nature of ITV sitcoms may also play a part in the reason why they're not as well remembered as their BBC counterparts. For example "Robin's Nest" was unusual for the time (1977) and even controversial. ITV had to ask permission from the IBA to make it because the notion of an unmarried couple setting up home together was for the time so beyond the pale.

Whereas on the BBC sitcoms were more of a "neverland" nature. Last Of The Summer Wine for example seemed to take place in a "pocket parallel universe" where nearly nothing from the real world was ever discussed (although the earliest episodes with Blamire as "the third man" did have some political discussions)

Are You Being Served is another example. Even when the show started in 1972 it can claim to be already dated in its settings. Its my opinion that the best comedies are slightly "otherworldly" (and I don't mean Red Dwarf ).

One writer had said the reason why ITV sitcoms are very rarely remembered is the lack of character development and time given to let a sitcom develop. She said, the ITV sitcom has to include a commercial break, which sometimes stops the flow of the comedy. Also it reduces the run time, back in 60s to 80s it would be around 3 minutes of commercials and of courses the gap required when the episode ends, meaning an ITV sitcom running time could be around 24 or 25 minutes.

BBC have also utilised their archive by having their UKTV commercial subsidiary as the main place for their archives, on GOLD, Drama and Yesterday.

ITV have ITV 3 and really never bothered to develop a channel of their own for their classic comedies, instead selling the rights of sitcoms to Forces TV or Talking Pictures TV.

Plus with ITV being a commercial network having a poorly made sitcom would result in less viewers and less potential revenue from advertisers.

One thing I have noticed is that some ITV sitcoms that have been released on DVD have been done by Network DVD
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maggie-Her-Complete-Julia-McKenzie/dp/B072BJZNSL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2CFQAW7UC9FOU&dchild=1&keywords=maggie+and+her&qid=1599926618&sprefix=maggie+and+he%2Caps%2C236&sr=8-1

Yes I've heard that, but can't remember where, some documentary.

That was part of the reason that Only Fools and Horses turned into the mega success that it did - John Sullivan didn't have an extra 4 minutes to play with, the BBC gave him a 50 minute slot. Those episodes could have a sub-plot or scenes that were just funny and not part the story, and most importantly develop the characters. With those episodes it went from a 3 hander to more of a ensemble cast

There's an oft-mentioned theory that comedy works because of people being trapped together. Till Death Us Do Part was one excellent example. You had Alf, Elsie, Mike and Rita in one room sparking off each other.

There probably are a few, law of averages. I suspect it was a case of the BBC being generally the more traditional broadcaster and ITV being generally the more modern and progressive looking.

Fawlty Towers and Porridge are classic examples of the situation that works best for British comedy - the protagonists are stuck in a situation they can't get out of or don't want to be in.

Basil and Sybil stuck in a loveless marriage and a hotel with awful customers
Fletch etc are stuck in prison,
Steptoe can't escape his father and the business,
Marjorie Forbes Hamilton can't get back to the Manor,
Lister can't get back to earth
Blackadder is surrounded by idiots etc.
Del Boy and Rodney aren't what they aspire to


Again this isn't the scenario with a lot of the more successful ITV sitcoms, there was tension in the situations but the tension wasn't that the characters didn't want to be together, generally the shows ended with all the characters coming together

EDIT Neil beat me to it

Add to that
Granville can't escape Arkwright
Jim Hacker is trapped with Humphrey and Bernard.

I like The New Statesman although it's surprising it went to ITV rather than say Channel 4 or BBC Two. I believe Marks and Gran were working on a revival/sequel series.