From The Evening Standard:
The reunited cast of Have I Got News For You have attacked the number of comedy shows on television, claiming they are stifling new panel games and quiz shows.
Paul Merton, Ian Hislop and Angus Deayton claim the success of programmes like Live At The Apollo, The Inbetweeners and The Impressions Show mean TV companies are less likely to invest in new quizmasters and team captains. The BBC, ITV and Channel 4 all host a glut of comedy shows.
Deayton, 55, said: "Part of the problem now is lack of money, particularly at the BBC. It's much cheaper to make stand-up comedy shows. I think that it's a shame there hasn't been a really good satirical topical news quiz-cum-panel show around for a while."
Thinking ahead
2 hours ago
8 comments:
not sure where the hypocrisy is...
I think they're right. There's far too many panel comedy shows.
Still, good to see The Fast Show will return somewhere.
Popular! Cheap to make! Ban them!
Did I really read 'lack of money' and 'BBC' in the same sentence? So that 3.6Bn (collected by coercion) isn't enough then? And let's not forget that it is £3.6Bn out of the total of £5.8Bn / £6.0 Bn spent by all broadcasters in the UK.
Monopolistic prats.
JT, it's certainly special pleading - it's hardly like Paul Whitehouse et al are "a new comedy act" are they? As a matter of fact, I liked their show (and Fast Train and Smack the Pony etc) and vastly prefer them to these endless ha ha hilarious programmes like QI, Never mind the Buzzcocks etc, but hey, the public gets to decide on this, not me.
BE, it's all a bit elitist, isn't it?
L, exactly. The point being that they are not "a new comedy act" if they really wanted to give youngsters a chance, they'd have retired a decade ago.
Thing is even the Fast Show was regarded by the Beeb as a "niche" comedy offering and hence appeared on BBC 2 - if it was debuting today I assume the Beeb would stick it on BBC3 - because the Beeb is "target demographic fixated" plus of course desperate to ensure that sufficient members of the BBC demographic tune it to it to justify keeping it. This "targetting" is pretty much demonstrated by the fact that whilst serving up HIGNFY in its carefully edited and abridged fastish, snappy 30 minute version on BBC1 the 45 minute unedited and keeping all the rough and duff bits in Have I got More HIGNFY screens on BBC2. The BBC don't care about comedy per se, they just care about "ratings and demographics" ....
Anon, sure, but there's nothing to stop you from watching BBC3 rather than BBC2 or BBC1, that's like a sports fan complaining that newspapers always relegate sports coverage to the back pages.
Mark, I don't think the nation's subconscious has ever moved on from the days when not everyone could get BBC2. It's like having your aerial bolted to the chimney. It doesn't need to be there, it would work perfectly well in the loft (and be more accessible and less prone to being blown off by gales). I'm convinced it just that in the early days, people wanted their neighbours to know that they had a TV and the BBC, of course, wanted to know who had a TV so they could charge them, so they encouraged this myth.
B, that's a good point. So why did electricians not just install aerials in lofts?
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