'Social media snobbery is killing the sitcom', says Blackadder's Ben Elton
The writer of Blackadder has criticised social media and critics, saying that sitcoms are at risk of disappearing from British television screens as a result of the snobbery from their viewers.
"A great and original television art form is dying", Ben Elton warned, due to "lazy contempt" and snobbery from viewers.
Elton, who also wrote The Young Ones, Spitting Image and some episodes of Mr Bean, shared his concerns while giving the inaugural BBC Ronnie Barker Comedy Lecture, which will be broadcast at 10.35pm this evening.
Elton explained that the UK was "in danger of losing something of real value in our culture" after online commenters and harsh critics helped to put an end to new shows before they got the opportunity to become fully established.
Sitcoms, the writer said, are expensive to produce due to the large number of people that are needed to record them live. This means that they must prove themselves within one series or else risk being shelved by television executives.
In a time when resources are tight in television, negative opinions on social media or from overzealous critics can cause good shows to be lost too soon, Elton suggested.
"These shows [are] very, very expensive," Elton said. "An expense that frankly is easy to duck if you’re just going to get slagged off for doing it anyway.
"While there’s nothing we can do about shrinking budgets, fractured audiences and TV companies turning their precious facilities into prime real estate, it might help if commentator, critic and columnist alike stopped treating studio sitcoms with such thoughtless contempt."
Elton defended critically panned but well-viewed sitcoms such as Miranda and Mrs Brown's Boys. He also said that shows such as The Young Ones would not have survived in today's social media age: "Had Rick, Vyvyan, Neil and Mike arrived in a world of instant opinions, formed and tweeted while a show is actually still on air I don’t think they’d have been given the grace to grow on people as they did."
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