The state of the audience sitcom, the best (and worst) ways to cancel a show, and the difference, such as there is, between selling and lying.

This week, in a special Q&A episode, Peter and Jimmy ask whether the audience sitcom has become a dying breed, and if there’s sufficient willingness amongst broadcasters to persist with series while they find their feet? And we discuss the tricky business of cancelling a show, and whether there’s ever a good way to do it. Peter recalls the day his scheduler dared him to cancel Last Of The Summer Wine, and Jimmy talks Episodes, and the time the BBC did their level best to cancel it, only to fail quite completely. Plus, bottle episodes, the nine lives of Room 101, and what happened when Murphy’s Irish Stout rang TalkBack and offered to pay Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews piles of cash to write a sitcom set in a bar in Ireland. Jimmy Mulville is the co-founder and Chief Executive of Hat Trick Productions. His list of hit shows includes Have I Got News For You, Father Ted, Derry Girls, Outnumbered, and Episodes. In the US Hat Trick launched Whose Line Is It Anyway in 1997 which ran on ABC for seven years and was the first British series to be recreated for American network television by a British producer.Peter Fincham ran TalkBack, where he executive produced many of their biggest shows including I’m Alan Partridge, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, and Da Ali G Show. He went on to be Controller of BBC1, then he was Director of Television at ITV, before returning to the independent sector as the co-CEO of Expectation, the company behind Clarkson's Farm and Alma's Not Normal.New episodes every Friday.YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@InsidersTVPodcastEmail: [email protected] Instagram: @InsidersTVPodInsiders: The TV Podcast is an Expectation and Hat Trick co-production.The producer is Owen Braben. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.