David Liddiment explores the rise and fall of the British sitcom and discovers how shifts in society, class, family life and the ways of TV itself have all contributed to the decline of the sitcom.

In 1984 British terrestrial TV commissioned 60 sitcoms but by 2004 this figure had dropped to just seven. With the emergence of multi-channel TV and the decline of the shared viewing experience, the programme asks whether the genre can ever make a comeback.