Quote: chipolata @ June 5 2010, 10:55 AM BST

Yes, I'm digging around looking for that kind of info. I think it's easier to see how financially rewarding a big succesful American sitcom is, but harder to quantify the success of a British sitcom in financial terms.

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If it's for the BBC I suppose the profit it makes would be mainly distribution payments and DVD sales (though they can be paid to different sources) minus the production cost.

The commercial channels have advertising revenue to factor in too. Then there's selling the rights.

Mega bucks for great sitcoms, peanuts, maybe even a loss for dross, I think that's why there are far more sitcoms made by BBC than by commercial TV.

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ June 5 2010, 11:37 AM BST

Then there's selling the rights.

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Yes, I suspect this is where the big bucks come from if it pays off.

Although personally if I ran a TV company I doubt I'd even bother with sitcoms since the mega money seems to come from Reality TV show/gameshow formats.

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ June 5 2010, 11:37 AM BST

If it's for the BBC I suppose the profit it makes would be mainly distribution payments and DVD sales (though they can be paid to different sources)

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Apparently the BBC makes almost no money from DVDs. It goes almost exclusively to the writer(s).

Which would account for Gervais's very smug looking face.

Quite.

And the slightly sad tinge to his eyes as he remembers Merchant gets half.

Quote: zooo @ June 5 2010, 3:58 PM BST

And the slightly sad tinge to his eyes as he realises Cemetry Junction has done a bit shit at the box office.

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So mean hearted!

Aw, bless him.

I still haven't seen Cemetery Junction.
I do think he should stick to TV now. He's brilliant at it (in my opinion).

I see him hosting some sort of chat show again, mabye becoming the next Jonathan Ross. I can't see him bothering with another sitcom until he's got another briliant idea for one. He must have used up all his best material on the last two. He's good at TV but we're in danger of seeing too much of him.

I wouldn't mind if he just carried on doing podcasts until the next great idea for a sitcom comes along.

Aren't Gervais and Merchant writing a sitcom for Warick Davies?

They are, yes.

Haven't they finished writing it yet? That's been going for ages.
Or maybe people have just been talking about it for ages, prematurely.