The British Comedy Awards: Dear ITV

Dear ITV,

With the news that you seem to be sticking to your threats and NOT showing the British Comedy Awards 2007 (certainly not live anyway), I would like to make it publicly clear quite that I, and many other comedy fans, consider you to at best be spineless, pathetic, trash-peddling c**ts.

When you continue to broadcast such utter mind-numbing crap as I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here, the surprisingly popular Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and all of the other programmes which were involved in this phone-voting 'scandal', whilst declining to show what must be one of your biggest audience grabbers (and certainly one of only a tiny handful of programmes actually worth watching), I can only assume that you are utterly f**king barmy, and would like to state that ITV1 in particular grows less and less worth watching on a weekly if not daily basis. If there is any logic at all, I for one invite you to reveal it, 'cos I don't know anyone who can see it.

If this is really all about the audience voting, there's a simple solution. Either DROP THE AWARD ALTOGETHER, or even better MAKE THE RELEVANT AWARD INTERNET VOTING ONLY. Oh, and a radical thought as a final possibility, CLOSE THE VOTING SOONER. National Television Awards, anyone?

Or perhaps it's because pretty much the only remotely funny programme you have shown in the past 12 months has been Al Murray's Happy Hour, and so you know that your own stations are highly unlikely to win much, if anything at all. Can't be having Channel 4, five, or the BBC getting any publicity now, can we? And whose fault is that? It's certainly not down to Peter Fincham that YOU can't come up with anything amusing. Unless I'm very much mistaken, twelve different awards (thirteen normally, ahem), 37 separate nominations, and you have managed, erm let's see, THREE. No one's fault but your own.

Grow up. Grow some spines. Stop being so pathetic, and peddling such utter shite out to the nation whilst holding back on something actually worth watching to those of us with an IQ higher than our shoe size.

Mmkay?

Kind regards,

Aaron Brown

(Acting on a personal basis, entirely independent of the British Sitcom Guide.)

Well said, Sir.
Bunch of c**tflaps*.

*word property of Aaron

Where do I sign?

Has the revolution arrived yet?

No we're just the welcome wagon we got a table and some biscuits over there for when it arrives.

Right that's it! I'm boycotting all comedy on ITV. Ah...

Can I say Thank you to ITV for not showing the comedy awards? Because to be honest it's a bunch of bollocks nowadays and with the current state of British comedy there's not many people that deserve awards.

Quote: Martin Holmes @ November 29, 2007, 4:35 PM

Can I say Thank you to ITV for not showing the comedy awards?

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No you can't. Piss off!

Quote: ContainsNuts @ November 29, 2007, 4:37 PM

No you can't. Piss off!

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Ha ...Well..I tried.

Quote: Martin Holmes @ November 29, 2007, 4:35 PM

Can I say Thank you to ITV for not showing the comedy awards? Because to be honest it's a bunch of bollocks nowadays and with the current state of British comedy there's not many people that deserve awards.

View original

I'm not a huge lover of much of the stuff nominated, but that's not the point. It's the principal of the situation really. Think about all of the other crap they show which has phone voting. Why single out and refuse to show the BCAs?

However, you don't seem to like ANY British comedy from ANY period, so am not surprised by that response.

Cheer up Martin.

I think this year was alright... Gavin and Stacey was well received by many and Lead Balloon, Peep Show, Harry Hill's TV Burp and Not Going Out were awesome in my books.

Meanwhile the new series of Fonejacker, Star Stories, Saxondale, The Royle Family, QI and The IT Crowd certainly didn't disappoint their fans.

Anyway, whether or not the actual nominees are any good the ceremony has always been a blast so I'm f'ing pissed off ITV are blocking us from watching it live. As Jason says, the cutting and close-to-the-bone opening monologue by Jonathan Ross is always a highlight of the year.

It's the one speech where nothing seems to be off limits - last year pretty much everyone got it in the neck. For example, if I remember rightly in 2006 he got away with some very cheeky jokes about Paul O'Grady's heart attack, Steve Coogan's pregnancy troubles, Craig Charles drug problems, Heather Mills missing leg and much more.

If ITV weren't so asshamed of there own comedy output, maybe they'd air the awards show. You know that Johnathon Ross is going to rip the piss out of them for this.

Quote: Aaron @ November 29, 2007, 4:59 PM

I'm not a huge lover of much of the stuff nominated, but that's not the point. It's the principal of the situation really. Think about all of the other crap they show which has phone voting. Why single out and refuse to show the BCAs?

However, you don't seem to like ANY British comedy from ANY period, so am not surprised by that response.

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I love British comedy, check my influences in my profile. Alan Patridge is one of my fave sitcoms ever. Iannucci, Morris, Baynham, Coogan are all huge influences. Not to mention Cook & Moore, Monty Python, Two Ronnies etc.

I just don't like most British comedy nowadays apart from Peep Show, The Thick Of It, Not Going Out and Harry Hill's TV Burp (that's 4 shows over the course of a year, that's not good enough). It may seem like I judge new British comedy too harshly, but it's just I know how good British comedy has and CAN be, so it pisses me off with some of the crap that gets passed off as 'the cream of British comedy' nowadays, that's all.

I get the principle yeah, it's stupid that they've singled out this show over others that have done much worse. But it doesn't bother me too much. I prefer the Tumbleweed Awards.

Haha, ok, fair enough.

Quote: Martin Holmes @ November 29, 2007, 11:44 PM

that's 4 shows over the course of a year, that's not good enough

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Maybe I'm easily pleased, but even 1 or 2 decent shows a year is pretty good. I don't recall us getting more than that in the so-called "golden age".