Ofcom says BBC comedy 'at risk' for fourth year
- Ofcom has criticised the BBC's lack of focus on comedy for the fifth year
- The genre has been deemed specifically "at risk" for a fourth year running, due to low investment
- It only assumed oversight of the broadcaster five years ago
Broadcast and communications regulator Ofcom has again branded the comedy genre to be "at risk" on the BBC.
It is the fourth successive year in which the organisation has flagged the Corporation's television comedy output in such terms - having only assumed responsibility of oversight over the BBC five years ago.
Relating specifically to television, 'comedy' includes the scripted commissions from the BBC Comedy department - sitcoms, sketch shows and a small number of comedy dramas and archive documentaries. It does not cover panel or stand-up formats such as Have I Got News For You and Live At The Apollo, which are almost exclusively commissioned by the Entertainment department.
The first such report into Britain's national broadcaster covered the financial year beginning April 2017 and highlighted a drop of 38% in television comedy since 2010, however since the second annual report the regulator has used the explicit "at risk" term.
Alongside a number of other genres including arts and children's, comedy is deemed as "at risk" due to continuously declining hours of original content broadcast and money invested, its importance to both the television and national cultural landscape, and the BBC's obligations under its charter.
The fifth annual report, which was published last week and covers April 2021 to March 2022, repeats the alarm for comedy, calling for continued investment in the genre.
In total, Ofcom counted 108 hours of original UK comedy across BBC television channels in 2021-2, down from 225 in 2010 (when both BBC Three and BBC Four broadcast comedy), but up by six hours on 2020-1.
The following chart breaks down how many hours of new comedy commissions were broadcast, UK-wide, across the four BBC television channels between the financial years starting 2010 and 2021.
