- British Comedy Guide
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British Comedy Guide 
Screenshot of the homepage of the British Comedy Guide on 2 January 2011.URL http://www.comedy.co.uk/ Type of site Online British comedy TV, radio and film guide. Host of British comedy podcasts. Registration Required to post (free) Owner Mark Boosey Launched August 2003 Current status Active The British Comedy Guide or BCG (formerly the British Sitcom Guide or BSG) is a British website covering all forms of British comedy, across all media.[1][2] At the time of writing, the BCG has published guides to more than 1,200 individual British comedies - primarily TV and radio situation comedy, sketch shows, comedy dramas, satire, variety and panel games. Other notable features on the BCG include a news section, a message board, interviews with comedians and actors, a series of comment and opinion articles, a searchable merchandise database, and a section offering advice to aspiring comedy writers. The website also runs The Comedy.co.uk Awards and hosts several podcast series including The Collings and Herrin Podcasts and As It Occurs To Me, the later of which was nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award in 2010.[3]
Reportedly, The British Comedy Guide attracts over 500,000 unique visitors a month, making it Britain's most-visited comedy-related reference website.[1][4]
Contents
Background
The logo for the British Comedy Guide between 11 May 2009 - 1 January 2011.
The website was founded in August 2003 as the British Sitcom Guide (BSG),[5] a website devoted to British situation comedy TV programmes. The website was established by Mark Boosey, a freelance web developer, originally as a hobby.[6] However, in 2008, it was decided to expand the remit of the website to cover all forms of British comedy, and thus the BSG was re-launched as The British Comedy Guide, and has continued to expand since this point.
Other features added since the site's re-launch as The British Comedy Guide in 2008 include The Collings and Herrin Podcasts series, a section featuring interviews with people working in British comedy industry, a Twitter-based news service, and the "Twitter Directory", which lists the people and organisations related to British comedy who use Twitter.[7]
Key People
Ref Joined Person Job Title(s) [8] 2003 Mark Boosey Site Editor [9] 2005 Aaron Brown Site Editor [10] 2006 Ian Dunn (aka Ian Wolf) Data Specialist [11] 2009 Si Hawkins Regular Columnist [12] 2009 Anna Lowman Regular Columnist [13] 2010 Jay Richardson Live Reviewer The Comedy.co.uk Awards
In January 2007, the BSG created The British Sitcom Guide Awards, which were later renamed The British Comedy Guide Awards and are now known as The Comedy.co.uk Awards.[14] The awards are notable for allowing the public to choose the winners via an online poll, and because they use no shortlist - all broadcast programmes are included in the public vote. This differs from the British Comedy Awards which relies on broadcasters to put their programmes forward for nomination, and only uses a small panel of judges to determine the results. Additionally, The Comedy.co.uk Awards also seeks to name not just the winners, but the worst programme in each category too.[15]
In order to be considered for a Comedy.co.uk Award, a programme must be a British comedy which has had at least one new episode broadcast on British TV or radio between 1 January and 31 December of the previous year. The only exception is shows which span across the new year. For example, if a series began in the previous year, and one episode is shown in the year of voting, the series does not count unless another series of the same show was broadcast later that year.[14]
The visitors taking part in the poll are asked to give three votes in each category: one to their favourite show, one to their second favourite show, and one to their least favourite show. The vote for "top favourite" scores two points for the selected programme, and a vote for a "second favourite" scores one. The comedy programme with the most points is declared the winner in that category. The show which receives the highest number of "worst" votes is declared the worst comedy in that category.
All of the awards are voted for by the website's users except one, the British Comedy Guide Editors' Award, which is an award voted for just by the controllers of the guide, and is given "to the show, person, channel, or indeed anything else comedy related that deserves some recognition."[16]
2006
The first awards were presented in January 2007 and were known at the time as The British Sitcom Guide Awards 2006, but have since been re-named. Below are the awards.[16]
Award Best Worst New British TV Sitcom The IT Crowd Bo! in the USA Returning British TV Sitcom Green Wing (Series 2) My Hero (Series 6) British TV Sitcom Special The Vicar of Dibley The Green Green Grass British TV Sketch Show That Mitchell and Webb Look Tittybangbang British TV Panel Show / Satire QI Best of the Worst Best and Worst of David Mitchell That Mitchell and Webb Look Blunder Comedy Of The Year Green Wing N/A Editors' Award The Complete Guide to Parenting N/A 2007
The second awards were presented in January 2008, originally under the title The British Sitcom Guide Awards 2007. Below are the results.[17]
Award Best Worst New British TV Sitcom Gavin and Stacey The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle Returning British TV Sitcom Peep Show (Series 4) Hyperdrive (Series 2) British TV Sitcom Special Extras To the Manor Born British TV Sketch Show The Armstrong and Miller Show The Catherine Tate Show British TV Panel Show / Satire QI And Then You Die Comedy Of The Year The IT Crowd Tittybangbang Editors' Award Outnumbered N/A 2008
The third awards were presented in January 2009 and were the first to include radio shows. The 2008 awards were known as the British Comedy Guide Awards 2008, but were re-named in 2009 to reflect the website's new URL. Below are the awards.[18]
Award Best Worst New British TV Sitcom The Inbetweeners Lab Rats Returning British TV Sitcom Outnumbered (Series 2) Coming of Age (Series 2) British Radio Sitcom Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency The Lost Weblog of Scrooby Trevithick[fn 1] British TV Sketch Show Harry and Paul Little Miss Jocelyn British Radio Sketch Show Laura Solon: Talking and Not Talking Tilt[fn 2] British TV Panel Show / Satire Harry Hill's TV Burp The Wall British Radio Panel Show / Satire The Now Show Act Your Age Comedy Of The Year Peep Show Coming of Age Editors' Award Bleak Expectations N/A 2009
The fourth awards were presented in January 2010. Below are the results.[15][19]
Award Best Worst New British TV Sitcom Psychoville Big Top Returning British TV Sitcom Peep Show (Series 6) Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (Series 8) British Radio Sitcom Bleak Expectations Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! British TV Sketch Show That Mitchell and Webb Look Horne & Corden British Radio Sketch Show That Mitchell and Webb Sound Ayres on the Air British TV Panel Show / Satire QI Celebrity Juice British Radio Panel Show / Satire I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue The Christian O'Connell Solution Comedy Of The Year The Thick of It Horne & Corden Editors' Award Horrible Histories / Sorry I've Got No Head N/A 2010
The fifth awards were presented in January 2011. Below are the results.[20]
Award Best Worst New British TV Sitcom The Trip Trinny & Susannah: From Boom To Bust Returning British TV Sitcom Peep Show (Series 7) Coming of Age (Series 2) British Radio Sitcom Another Case of Milton Jones N/A British TV Sketch Show That Mitchell and Webb Look Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights British Radio Sketch Show Sarah Millican's Support Group N/A British TV Panel Show / Satire QI Celebrity Juice British Radio Panel Show / Satire I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue N/A British TV Entertainment Show Newswipe with Charle Brooker James Corden's World Cup Live British Radio Entertainment Show French and Saunders N/A British TV Comedy Drama Misfits Shameless Comedy of The Year Miranda Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights Editors' Award Roy Clarke N/A Podcasts
The BCG currently host five podcasts: The Collins and Herring Podcasts a satirical podcast starring Andrew Collins and Richard Herring; As It Occurs to Me, presented by Herring; No Pressure To Be Funny, a satirical podcast presented by James O'Brien; Pappy's Flatshare Slamdown, a panel game presented by the sketch troupe Pappy's; and What Are You Laughing At?, the BCG's own podcast, presented by Dave Cohen, which reviews comedy and covers comedy news stories.[21] As It Occurs to Me was nominated for a Sony Radio Academy Award in 2010.[3]
Footnotes
- ^ This show did collect the most votes, but too few were cast overall in order to provide a definitive "winner".[18]
- ^ This show did collect the most votes, but too few were cast overall in order to provide a definitive "winner". Suspicion was also raised that a significant number of the negative votes may have been cast by users who had unsuccessfully submitted material for the series, and were voting against it as an act of revenge rather than as a fair reflection of its quality.[18]
References
- ^ a b Boosey, Mark. "About the British Comedy Guide". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/about/. Retrieved 3 January, 2011.
- ^ http://listorious.com/UKComedyNews
- ^ a b Boosey, Mark (6 April 2010). "Sony Radio Award nominees announced". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/news/story/00000279/sony_radio_awards_2010_nominees/. Retrieved 7 April 2010.
- ^ http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/comedy.co.uk
- ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20050404031803/http://www.sitcom.co.uk/
- ^ http://www.mboosey.com/
- ^ Boosey, Mark. "Directory of British Comedy on Twitter". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/features/twitter_directory/. Retrieved 9 June 2009.
- ^ Boosey, Mark. "Mark Boosey". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/profile/mark/. Retrieved 2 September 2009.
- ^ Brown, Aaron. "Aaron Brown". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/profile/aaron/. Retrieved 9 July 2011.
- ^ Wolf, Ian. "Ian Wolf". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/profile/ian_wolf. Retrieved 2 September 2009.
- ^ Hawkins, Si. "Circuit Training". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/live/circuit_training/. Retrieved 2 September 2009.
- ^ Lowman, Anna. "Anna Lowman". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/features/articles/anna/. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
- ^ Richardson, Jay. "Jay Richardson". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/live/jay_richardson/. Retrieved 2 December 2009.
- ^ a b Boosey, Mark. "The Comedy.co.uk Awards". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/awards/. Retrieved 9 May 2009.
- ^ a b http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2010/01/25/10388/horne_%26_corden_win_awards
- ^ a b Boosey, Mark. "The Comedy.co.uk Awards 2006". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/awards/2006/. Retrieved 9 May 2009.
- ^ Boosey, Mark. "The Comedy.co.uk Awards 2007". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/awards/2007/. Retrieved 9 May 2009.
- ^ a b c Boosey, Mark. "The Comedy.co.uk Awards 2008". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/awards/2008/. Retrieved 9 May 2009.
- ^ Boosey, Mark. "The Comedy.co.uk Awards 2009". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/awards/2009/. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
- ^ Boosey, Mark. "The Comedy.co.uk Awards 200910ublisher=British Comedy Guide". http://www.comedy.co.uk/awards/2010/. Retrieved 14 January 2011.
- ^ "British Comedy Podcasts". British Comedy Guide. http://www.comedy.co.uk/podcasts/. Retrieved 2010.
External links
- UK Comedy News - Twitter feed from the site providing general comedy news.
- UK Comedy DVDs - Twitter feed from the site concentrating on DVD release news and deals.
Categories:- British websites
- Comedy websites
- Community websites
- Film websites
- Internet properties established in 2003
- Radio websites
- Television websites
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