Alfred J Kipper
Saturday 26th February 2011 2:38pm [Edited]
Aldershot
8,387 posts
Oh yes it can, or it certainly used to be able to. Rising Damp, George & Mildred, On The Buses were just some of the very funny sitcoms it used to do really well. Imo, ITV has simply lost its bottle in comissioning sitcoms, in taking slight risks, and seems even to be frightened to death of the BBC's Golithian reputation in comedy now.
It needs to get that desire back, as I am sure there are some decent BBC reject sitcoms that would do very nicely on another mainstream channel. It does need to stop worrying about its rigidly mainstream, family type appeal though, as few of these really please the viewers or critics these days. It needs to be more daring, that's all.