Sorry if there's already a similar topic somewhere... But anyway, UI'm writing the pilot episode of a comedy drama, but I'm not entirely sure how long it needs to be... BBC3's requirements from a while ago said an hour, so I aimed for an hour, but just now realised that other channels probably want it to be shorter so they can fit adverys into it in an hour long block... and you can't exactly write something specifically for a certian channel... So I'm a little stumped as to what to do D: What length are comedy dramas normally meant to be? I've never written one before.

It's currently about 40 mins and not finished.

For a "1 hour slot", I always make sure my script is about 59 minutes.

If a commercial took it on, you could then cut it down a bit.

Just make it as long as you think it needs to be to tell your story. If your writing is good enough people will be interested but whoever is interested isn't going to make your script exactly as it is anyway.