The three biggest cheeses in the industry reveal all...

The comedy chiefs of Britain’s three public-service broadcasters gathered at the BBC Comedy Festival in Belfast yesterday to discuss the state of the industry. The BBC’s Jon Petrie, ITV’s Nana Hughes and Channel 4’s Charlie Perkins discussed trying to nurture distinctive low-budget British shows that did not need international money, the threats to the industry and some things writers and producers might not think of when pithing shows. Hosted by Phil Clarke, of programme-makers Various Artists Limited and himself a former head of Channel 4 comedy. Here’s some of what was said: 

---

Jon Petrie on the biggest changes of the last ten years

YouTube is having a big effect with people watching lots of comedy.There's more comedy now than there’s ever been so more to compete with, and it's all got lots shorter but none of it feels quite as permanent so I there’s something really, really special about a half-hour comedy.

Charlie Perkins

The pandemic probably knocked out a couple of generations of people who were performing alternative comedy, sketch/ character stuff. We saw that dissipate That's been a massive shame. With that, you're losing a lot of kind of variation of voices. People are going online, making their own straight-to-camera things. But I feel like you're losing a bit of that collaboration, people finding their gangs that they they love and they really want to work with. I think that has meant we're getting more authored pieces, in place of things that feel like a collective of people doing stuff together. I think that is changing down

Nana Hughes

More diversity has been the most significant change in the last ten years from Juiced to Man Like Mobeen, to Dreaming Whilst Black… that’s a great reflection. 

Jon Petrie on podcasts

If you're a comedian, it's a lot easier to just sit in the room and chat about food and be funny about that because you're funny people. It’s a lot harder to sit in a room and sweat over a script and send yourself mad.  It’s important to remember that you can still earn money by writing for  radio, and it's a really good place to try stuff out.  

Charlie Perkins on social media routes intoTV

 I think that it's important to hone your craft. I feel like there's a lot of stuff that [broadcasters] are leaping to commission, wanting to work with people who already have an in-built fan base on social media. But it's a slightly different thing to spend that time  really crafting what you do, getting different credits, working with different people. It’s a longer path.

Nana Hughes

It’s not always telly where they are going to make their money. For a lot of social influencers they want to do long form and they're not bothered about money, because they earn shitloads doing what they do.

Jon Petrie

Like Lucia and Things You Should Have Done. Lucia really wanted to have a sitcom. She loved sitcom. She was obsessed with sitcom. She's really good on social media, really good following, but that was where her heart was.

Jon Petrie on what surprised him about his job

Public speaking. Things like the speech yesterday. It's so hard because you know that there are so many people who just think you’re a prick.

Charlie Perkins

It's that. It’s the feeling of being a prick, because I was on the outside as a producer. Where commissioners are giving you notes and feedback  or changing titles of shows, there feels like there's a slight ulterior motive, it feels a bit combative. 

And actually now, being on the inside, the point is to get people to see the shows and for them to be successful.  If you're giving feedback or notes it's  really, just trying to get people to see stuff 

Jon Petrie on show titles 

There's so much research now, and if you're a comedy writer or a producer, that might not be your area of expertise. For example, young people often search now with voice, they don't write things down, so if you've got a long title for a show, it's harder for people to remember what to say. They get it wrong. The search gets it wrong. You can't find it.

Charlie Perkins

I think to stand out, we've got to do stuff that is a bit Ronseal, I guess, just with the aim to get people through the door and start watching something. That also plays into the big question of, how to make something big and broad. A  big thing about that is the entry point being sort of familiar.  It doesn't mean that you can't have something that has that kind of depth or personality or has purpose or opinion, but it's just that immediately, of getting people to come to the show

Nana Hughes on subjectivity in comedy

We all hide behind that a lot, like "you don't get it because it's subjective, our audience really understand it." But we work for the channel, so we understand what our audiences are looking for. Not all the time, I admit. But we do get a lot of data, and we can recognise a lot of stuff, and we are here to help. It’s  that thing of just remembering we are all in it together. We want to aid the show. We want to make it possible

Phil Clarke

I recognise that. Sometimes there's a culture in television that the broadcaster is the enemy. People forget that the broadcaster has put a lot of money across the table to make a show, they're not the enemy. [As  commissioners] your careers are hanging on the success of the show. It's not just the producers and the right system, the size of the career that has been a weird culture

Jon Petrie

I said this yesterday, but I think that age of co-production when we really felt like everything would go into America. It was "how can we sell this to America?" I think probably those opportunities… well, they were there, but only for a certain type of show. I think we weren't making as many shows for UK audiences that we should have been. There was a good reason for it, but I think that's a big thing.

Charlie Perkins

I also think in Jon’s speech yesterday, about that nimble, simple, small footprint stuff is really key. I think that's where a lot of brilliant British comedies have always nest, and I think that is what we need to all be supporting more of. And for us, it's to balance some things that do have a bit high production budgets, and some things that are much simpler. 

Nana Hughes

For us at ITV, it's always been about keeping the financial bar low so the expectations of audience numbers can be kept low as well. The more we spend closer to drama then we're going to be compared to drama. We need to be getting five, six million people  And as we all know, that's really hard to do. 

Charlie Perkins

The more expensive it is, the harder that conversation becomes about bringing something back.

Jon Petrie

Still be ambitious, but just be clever from the beginning about every cost. Does something need to be set in the 80s? Because so much stuff comes in that's set in the 80s, and that's going to cost more to do.

Just think about that at the beginning, and hopefully it's something that we can keep making more of. Costs might rise and everyone might need to be paid more. But if it show’s a success, then it'll be easier to attract additional funding later on down the line. It is possible to make shows on a BBC fee alone.  I think it's a positive. I think it came done.

Phil Clarke

From an indie point of view, it would be so nice to be able to pitch you guys shows, and for us to say, "Yeah we can make it on your fee,"  then we're not going to have to ask a distributor to lend us some money, which we'll then have to pay back if we get to make the show. 

At the moment you can have  pitched a show, a broadcaster said yes, but you still can't make it. That is becoming increasingly common.

In the TV world I grew up in, if a broadcaster said yes to a show, you get to make it. It was great. You just cracked on with it. It was so, so simple. That idea now that commission is a half-yes, is a new thing that's happened in the last, I would say, eight years. 

If there is a world where we  make shows by getting get down to the basics,  I think it would be that would be great. Let’s not set it in the 80s, set it now. Let’ not set it on a galleon, set it in an office.

Nana Hughes

I think that is going back to creating great comedic characters, and then thinking about the world [they inhabit]. We no longer concentrate on characters, because people’s journeys in to TV have changed from radio and from sketch, where great characters were created, you don't have those any more. 

Jon Petrie

It's also speed. We can be quicker if we can afford it all ourselves and pay for all ourselves, it’ll be a quicker development process. We've got things that we're announcing, that we commissioned three years ago,  everything's just slowed down like that. 

Phil Clarke

We have this strange relationship with Americans. We love their  money, but at the same time I do feel like our industry is slowly being colonised. So the idea that, if we can find ways of making shows again, just for ourselves  British broadcasters, that’s a way forward.

Jon Petrie

It’s like Steve Coogan was saying yesterday, that we love a loser and the Americans that just don't get that.  

Phil Clarke

We often get [notes] that the lead character is not likeable. You think, "Well, that's the point. They're not going to learn anything."

Charlie Perkins

With more international comedy, there’s something very homogeneous about it, that doesn’t feel like it's specific to a time or place, or doesn't have idiosyncrasies or, yeah, just feels a little bit toothless or sanded down around the edges. Everything is made to sort of look and feel like  no man's land or not specific. And I think British comedy has always been the opposite of that, and very specific.

Phil Clarke

18:00

We need to recognise we can't make it as glossy as we used to. You know The Studio with Seth Rogen. I think it's really funny, but clearly a lot of money has been spent on itBut  someone passed a clip around in the office recently, and it was Alan Partridge in a Young Offenders Prison, and it was really badly lit, but it was equally as funny. It was equally,  if not more funny. So I think if we don’t worry too much [about making it look great]

Jon Petrie

You should trust the people.  We've seen it with Amanda land this this year, and Cunk. Everyone shares them and talks about them, and yeah, people don't care [about production values], as long as it’s funny.

 Charlie Perkins

It’s about everybody being on the same page

Nana Hughes

Its’s  often the crews. Because we're giving people their first chance, right? The first director, the DOP [director of photography] the first chance of doing something long form or or scripted. And they tend to want to aim high, making something to advance their career 

Jon Petrie

Yes, in comedy you often have to sacrifice a lovely shot for the funniest take.  That can be hard sometimes. I think that’s why a lot of good writers go into directionbecause they know it's about the joke and the timing.

Phil Clarke

A lot of writers go to America, whereas in years gone by, they would have had a brilliant career on British television. It feels to me that  as suppliers, we're going to have to just keep finding new writers, because inevitably, soon as someone gets profile, they're there. ..

Jon Petrie

We've got a couple of people that we're working with who they have gone and done that, and they've actually come back and hated that process. They said, "I'd much rather just work with the BBC. I get left alone a bit more, and I feel more in control of it, and I'm just happier doing that." So some, some will go and some will have amazing career in Hollywood, and others, I they'll come back, and they'll miss that feeling of working in Britain.

Nana Hughes on trying to attract young audiences 

They are the hardest of the hard, an elusive group of people. G’wed has done really well for us and resonated with a younger audiences, but generally I blame the fact we stopped making kids’ TV… this generation just didn't get hooked on TV, so they went off and found it elsewhere.

Jon Petrie

There is just more stuff now. Gaming is so much bigger. The internet is so much bigger.  But something like Amandaland… that benefited for us having Motherland on Netflix. Actually, that's a fairly rare example where it's been quite good having our stuff on Netflix, because now people come to is as the only place you can watch Amandaland is the BBC, that's nowhere else. So it brings them in, and then hopefully they'll see other tuff.

Charlie Perkins

I think it’s trying not to be patronising, giving people  credit they'll just come to stuff that's good, I think, and not trying to specifically target them.

Jon Petrie 

Amandaland has quite a young audience, it’s interesting characters. They want to watch people they know in their lives, like, their parents, they don’t just want to watch young people.

Phil Clark

For years everybody has wanted to be cool, but there’s still an appetite for mainstream shows

Jon Petrie defining  what that means…

Having heart and not being afraid to have heart. It’s very get very cynical, but people really, really respond to that. People want to watch comedies to cheer up. You know, there's obviously the type of comedy that can be a bit more edgy and that's great. We love that as well. But I think, remembering some of your favourite moments in comedy will be things that makes you feel.

Nana Hughes

The populist comedies are successful, obviously, mainly on BBC. You’re looking at Amandaland, Mrs Brown’s Boys and Benidorm, have all been big hits. There is a snobbery in comedy,   but  massive numbers, that's what we all want. We all want to have that kind of success. We need to remove ourselves from that snobbery and go, "Okay, let's think about the audience who are watching these shows, enjoying these shows." They aren't just comedy fans, which can turn up in very small numbers, and appreciate the craft of it. We actually need to look at reach and get it larger.

Jon Petrie

Look at Gavin And Stacey: 20.9 million people watched that. We should all be looking at that and go, "What is it about that?" It’s part soap, part romcom, part sitcom and we should all be really celebrating and be proud of it, because that's an amazing story for comedy. But I think in comedy,   because it becomes popular, everyone stars shooting it down.

Charlie Perkins

Saturday Night Live UK, when that was officially announced last month, lots of people went, "Oh, it’ll never work. It'll be shit and nobody will watch it."  But as an industry, we should all get behind it, because it would be an amazing thing for that to work for so many reasons.

Jon Petrie on whether people are pitching mainstream shows to him

No. They’re the hardest thing to get right, because you're trying to appeal as many people as possible

Charlie Perkins

Everyone knows there's no alchemy to a hit show. It's not that you this person and this writer but here are things we've got to do to kind of mitigate those risks, I guess.

Phil Clarke

I scertainly think we can't manufacture a hit show. Pften they’ll come out of  leftfield, like The Office was not considered a Route One BBC show and ended up being a  massive hit.  But I hear what you're saying. Don't be frightened to be more mainstream.

J

Jon Petrie

I think relatable is also the big word, and authentic are key things  because people can see through things that aren’t straight away,

Charlie Perkins

And  funny, silly. That’s so basic, but it feels Yeah, I think your point about heart is so true that alongside that, I think just finding joy in comedy.

Phil Clarke

Do you think a lot of writers have  got something to say, and they want to say that more than finding a joke?

Jon Petrie

There’s that thing of wanting  to tell a story of some characters going on a journey. And often we say, well, that story, perhaps that could just be one character within five characters, and  that can be the plot for that week, rather than that needing to be the whole series. Access points and ways to get into things. If it's just one person and that one story, it's just harder to find a bigger audience. 

Charlie Perkins

Big Boys has been amazing, it’s been great for us, but that show was always going to be be limited because that story was told. To make more, commercially, of comedy we need stuff that can return and return, and I think those authored pieces are limited.

Phil Clarke

There used to be a thing in comedy that you need a second series to really understand whether it's working or not.  Sometimes, if you're doing a show that's original, you almost need to educate your audience into going: this is funny. I remember seeing the first episode of Father Ted thinking, I *think* that’s really good but I've never seen any like it before. So there is that thing

Charlie Perkins

It's a lot of pressures. It's very hard making fewer   things. When you get to decisions on second series, there's so much that has to be looked at, not just data, but everything qualitative, I guess, all sorts of reasons why something should be returned. But it's a difficult decision. 

To end the session, the executives were asked to defined some commissioning buzzwords that are often said without meaning…

Nana Hughes: ‘Authentic stories’

Referencing what Jon said earlier, it's about having heart and a lot of truth, and for ITV particularly we have a predominantly working-class audience. So let's try and find those working-class stories that feel real and true, rather than being a bit  snooty and high ground, looking down. It's like Benidorm. That’s a real place. They're real people who go on holiday. That is the package holiday audience. That's what we're looking for. It's that authenticity.

Charlie Perkins: ‘Bold and distinctive’

This means  things that are undeniably different – something we're looking for a lot currently. Stuff that feels like we haven't seen anything quite like that before It also means something that has some element of simplicity that you can sum up very clearly. Something not very convoluted – there’s a simple tagline for it.  

Jon Petrie: ‘Comedy-first ideas’

Leading with the laughter. What's the funny thing about it? That's the key thing for us. Does that work? Yeah, w

Charlie Perkins

We talk about that a  lot. We get pitched comedy dramas, as we’re still in that space. The question we ask people is, "does it genuinely make you laugh?" That feels useful for where it sits.

Jon Petrie

If you read a treatment, there's not funny jokes or it's just not funny, then that's not a good sign.

Published: 23 May 2025