Sitcom ends after 11 years

The BBC has axed its long-running comedy My Family after 11 years.

At its peak the sitcom attracted more than 10 million viewers, and although audiences for the last series were just below 5 million, it was still a solid performer in the ratings.

However new BBC1 boss Danny Cohen has decided the show had run its course after all five children in the fictional Harper household left home.

He said: ‘Now they have fled the nest we feel it's time to make room for new comedies. The eleventh series, coming to BBC1 later this year, will be the last.’

The head of comedy commissioning, Cheryl Taylor added: ‘Now almost a generation of British children have grown up with the Harper brood, we're looking to the future with new families and new comedies that we hope will prove equally popular.

‘We would like to thank everyone involved in the production of My Family for their much valued contribution over the course of more than 100 episodes.’

‘In 2007 its star Zoe Wanamaker said that she had grown to dislike the sitcom, and complained about the conveyor-belt mentality of the show, which is written using the American model of a team of salaried writers.

Revealing that she and co-star Robert Lindsay once refused to film an episode they thought was too bad, she said: ‘What attracted me to the first scripts was that they had a slightly quirky, American Jewish quality to them. But it's turned into a machine.

‘Robert and I even refused at one point to do one, it was so bad. That caused a lot of problems, but we just felt it was not good enough.’

However, in 2009 both actors agreed to take a pay cut so the series could continue, after BBC chiefs cut the show’s production budget by 15 per cent.

My Family was the first BBC sitcom to be created by an American showrunner, Fred Barron, who imported US production methods to Britain.

Published: 25 Mar 2011