BBC blasted over Only Fools reruns

The BBC has come under fire after it was revealed that it has repeated Only Fools And Horses 47 times in the past year.

The corporation has been accused of relying on the guaranteed ratings pull of old re-runs rather than trying to find new talent.

Only last month, the BBC added more Del Boy repeats to the schedules when it moved the new sitcom Trevor's World Of Sport from its prime-time Friday night slot ­ to be replaced by Del Boy.

Ironically, the first series of Only Fools And Horses floundered in 1981, and only found a sizeable audience in its third season. It may not have been given the time to blossom in today's climate.

Tory culture spokesman John Wittingdale told the Daily Mail: "The BBC can't continue to rely on shows that are 20 to 30 years old.

"There are three or four classic comedies which seem to come around with monotonous regularity - Only Fools And Horses, Fawlty Towers and Dad's Army.

"They are classics and people enjoy watching them, but it's difficult to see why you need a £116 licence fee if the BBC fills its schedules with old programmes."

However, the BBC said they were confident of hitting their target of having less than ten per cent of repeats on BBC1 over the year.

A spokesman said: "We repeat Only Fools because it's popular."

Published: 5 Oct 2003