Esteemed producer John Lloyd hits out at broadcasters

Comedy on TV is a ‘disaster’ that could destroy the BBC, celebrated producer John Lloyd has claimed.

He told an audience in London yesterday that programme-making was dominated by unqualified executives who knew about ‘scheduling, marketing and car parking’ – but not comedy.

Lloyd – whose credits include QI, Blackadder and Spitting Image – said: ‘Comedy is a disaster in television… few people know how, consistently, to produce comedy’.

And he said that people would desert the BBC if it couldn’t deliver quality comedy.

But he hoped that ‘creativity will find a way round the train crash that is the modern TV commissioning system which is a thoroughgoing disaster’.

Quoted in the Daily Telegraph, Lloyd was speaking at the launch of the new series of The South Bank Show on Sky Arts – one episode of which will concentrate on his illustrious career.

He said that commissioners had lost their way, and wouldn’t put trust in established producers. ’Even excellent producers with a proven track record [are] required to beg for new commissions along with any wanker who’s flown in from Middlesbrough who says I’ve got 3,000 hits on YouTube’.

Lloyd added: ‘Most comedy commissioners have never done five minutes of stand up, couldn’t write a sitcom, have never written a funny line - but they are in the department and it’s their job to decide what the people will see.

‘And when [they] see something they like they then go to the channel controller who is suddenly expected to be an expert on arts, documentaries, drama, comedy, cookery and everything else. It's completely absurd and no one in the system - if they've got any sanity - is happy.

‘The controllers are sitting there all day terrified because there's going to come a subject about which they do not understand and do not like and they are expected to give an opinion on it.’

Lloyd also dismissed the BBC’s announcement that it was putting at least one woman on every panel show as ‘tokenism’, ‘insulting to everybody’ and lagging behind’ the live circuit where female stand-ups are so prevalent.

Published: 2 May 2014