The comedy drought of BBC2

A new season of Red Dwarf starts on Thursday (20/09/2016) on the digital channel Dave. And when you look back at the history of the show this is bit of a come down for the show. For it's final season on BBC2 Red Dwarf was getting ratings of nearly 7 million which in these days of fragmented TV audiences is a figure that producers of programmes that air on BBC1 and ITV would give their eye teeth for. The fact that BBC2 can not acknowledged whose popularity was such that it was given a night of programmes dedicated to it seems to sum up the disdain that BBC2 has for comedy now. Yet this is the channel that gave us Not the Nine O'clock News, The Young Ones, The Fast Show and The Office to name just 4 programmes.. Yet you have to go back Miranda in 2009 to find a BBC2 comedy that made a mark on the viewing audience, so much that BBC1 approiated it. These days there is very little comedy shows on the channel with only the new show The Agency on. It is a sad state of affairs that used pride itself on having nights dedicated to the art now neglects it.