Like everyone else, I was advised 'Write what you know about'...
I'd been brought up in a corner shop so that's where I set my sitcom.
'Use a proven formula' came the next piece of advice.
I took Laurel & Hardy for a blueprint and (amongst other stuff) made them brothers to disguise the deed.
Months later I submitted to the Beeb and was told they 'had something similar in the pipeline'. Within weeks, Open All Hours hit the screen - a thinly disguised Laurel & Hardy sitcom about 2 single men, who are related and live/work in a corner shop.
Obviously, someone got there before me but had OAH appeared a couple of years later, I may have nursed a faint suspicion.
Gutted by all the wasted work, I put away my typewriter until the day my wife persuaded me to re-write the scripts.
By now I was a Market Trader so I moved my characters out of the shop, domiciled them in a high rise and added an old Aunt who looked after them.
Before the alterations were complete...Only Fools and Horses emerged...a thinly disguised Laurel & Hardy sitcom about 2 brothers who are Market Traders and share a high rise with an elderly relative....
When Indian call centres first started......
'Don't bother' said a "contact" at the Beeb 'loads of people are writng it so no production company will even look for fear of someone else doing it.'....had I completed and submitted "Thank You For Holding" I might be wondering where the idea for Mumbai Calling came from...but then...naturally...mine was far better so it can't be a copy
ABRIDGED VERSION - Whatever you can come up with - so can somebody else - and vice versa.
I meant it kinda tongue-in-cheek in tone. Didn't have anyone in mind. Especially not you, Tim. 
