The good news - for the chances of getting something in - was that this was a lot more up-to-date topical than the pilot, which means people can't just send in "bottom drawer" stuff, and therefore they'll be less of a deluge of material, esp. for sketches.
The bad news was that the pilot was misleading as a result and - like Mikey J - I subsequently sent in more general zeitgeisty material which wasn't really suitable. But with my "glass half full" hat on, I'm happy to write off one week if it means I stand more chance of being successful in future.
Also sounds like there were was a greater percentage of sketches (vs one-liners) than had seemed the case at the recording, which is also good news as there's loads of TV/radio programmes out there for topical one-liners, but very few for topical sketches. Plus if the Beeb is out to develop new writers, then writing sketches does that more than one-liners in my view.
Quote: swerytd @ June 19 2009, 10:37 AM BST
Hark at her, with her *four* sketches on!
On Tilt, average sketch from non-comms was 45 seconds from what I recall being informed. So, if you're really intent on conforming (and what sort of writer are you if you do?!) to something, you probably want to aim for one page of script to maximise your chances.
That said, a sketch ends when it ends, in my opinion.
Dan
I'd agree with that about short sketches normally, i.e. if you consistently produce one minute sketches full of gags then you'll always do well selling material to shows. However, I do find that for topical sketches, the shorter sketches I see/hear are mostly based around the sort of groaning punchline better suited to the 1970s/80s... There were quite a few long sketches in the pilot and last night, some of which could have been made comfortably shorter but a decision had clearly been made to maximise the potential by letting them run for over 2 mins.