Peter Fincham set to expand ITV's comedy output?
Industry pundits are predicting that Peter Fincham, ITV's new director of television, will be looking to boost the network's comedy output when he joins the broadcaster this spring.
Prior to his ITV appointment, Fincham was the popular and successful controller of BBC1. Between 2005 and 2007 the highly respected producer helped the corporation's flagship channel create year-on-year growth, with the now popular and on-going BBC1 audience sitcoms Not Going Out and After You've Gone commissioned during this tenure.
However, much of Fincham's comedy background comes from the period he was at TalkbackThames. His CV as executive producer features an impressive number of comedy hits – they include Da Ali G Show, Brass Eye, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, The Day Today, I'm Alan Partridge and Green Wing.
It is this strong background in comedy which is leading many to predict that Fincham will work closely with fellow comedy producer Paul Jackson (now also at ITV as their Director of Comedy) when he arrives at the station this spring.
Some are even predicting that Fincham will try and tempt a number of the BBC's top comedy stars to come across to ITV as part of the plan. Little Britain creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams are likely to be top of the shopping list – they are friends with Fincham and it is known that their £6m golden handcuffs deal with the BBC is due to come to an end in just over a year's time.
A source said: "One of the things ITV is sorely lacking is comedy. It's no surprise he'll want to get Matt and David on board – they are two of the world's hottest TV stars. There is just over a year left on the BBC deal and Peter is well known for being a friend of the stars."
ITV1 currently has a poor reputation when it comes to modern comedy – very few of its recent attempts have managed good ratings. However, now it is clear that the project of nuturing Harry Hill's TV Burp has worked (the show is now getting audiences as high 7 million), ITV is starting to show an admirable trait of giving comedies a couple of series to bed down.
As we reported earlier in the week, Moving Wallpaper will be returning. According to rumours, Paul Merton's Thank God You're Here has also been spared the axe, despite the fact the recent first series failed to get over the 3m viewers mark in its prime-time slot.
The second series of the holiday-based sitcom Benidorm starts on ITV1 shortly. A full series of The Abbey and a brand-new big budget sitcom called Teenage Kicks will also be seen on the network this spring/summer. Teenage Kicks features Bottom and Young Ones star Adrian Edmondson as Vernon, a middle-age man who moves in with his teenage kids following a spectacularly nasty divorce.