ITV bans all male comedy writing teams

Ms Saskia Schuster, why am i not surprised by this. Now doubt she will have a job for life at the BBC very soon.

Hopefully she will do something about the imbalance of motorway workers being all male.

didnt know it made any comedy anyway.

Love Island is a joke that's not funny

Lets be honest here there's no comedy on TV anymore

Mock The Week was a must watch when Frankie Boyle was on it, nowadays its got mainly left wing "comedians" on it and its about as funny as an abscess

I'm amazed there are still all male comedy writing teams in this day and age.  Who makes the sandwiches ?

am i being thick here but by doing this , is it not a form of discrimination ?

not for the men no, morpteh

More and more will just switch off and go to Netflix and Amazon

I know they fudge the viewing figures, I mean I'll run round London stark b0lluk naked if Doctor Who is getting 9 million viewers ffs

ITV will no longer commission comedy shows with all-male writers' rooms, the broadcaster's head of comedy has said.

Saskia Schuster said she realised last year that "an awful lot of my comedy entertainment shows are made up of all-male writing teams".

She said: "Too often the writing room is not sensitively run. It can be aggressive and slightly bullying."

She has now changed ITV's contracts, and female writers have been hired to join shows like ITV2's Celebability.

There has been "a significant lack of shows written by women or with women on the writing teams", she said.

Last year, when reviewing the gender balance of sitcom scripts she was sent, she realised that for every script she received from a female writer, she got five from men.

After consulting writers, producers, agents and performers, "the first thing I did was I changed my terms of commissioning," she told Channel 4's Diverse Festival in Bradford on Monday. "I won't commission anything with an all-male writing team."

Ms Schuster has launched a scheme called Comedy 50:50 to encourage more female comedy writers. She said female writers struggle because:

It is difficult to compete for jobs with men who have more writing credits
They can't find producers who "get" their voice and can develop their script to its full potential
They don't thrive as the lone female voice in a writers' room

"There can all too often be a sense of tokenism towards the lone female," she wrote on the Comedy 50:50 website. "Or the dominant perception is that the female is there purely so the production can hit quotas."

She has now changed ITV's contracts so any shows that are commissioned or recommissioned "must aim towards 50:50 gender representation".

"bullying" awwww bless her

A truly sad pitiful bunch of individuals

So you can expect boring "comedy" that will need to have canned laughter over it

Remember shows like Steptoe And Son and On The Buses?

Long gone

How do these so-called 'progressive' organisations get away with blatant gender discrimination?

It's not even done discreetly.

"Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais have written some of the most popular comedies on British Television including Porridge, The Likely Lads, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet."

So they would have been banned in this day and age, this country gets destroyed daily by the pc leftist/liberals, they make me fkin sick!

as krusty the klown said ' comedy aint funny anymore ' .

there's a way around this. Miranda Hart & Dawn French could always dress up as women

Their is some irony in it all that they are doing to themselves or more importantly to their company is narrowing the chances of being successful because of some box ticking or some claimed imbalance.

Men tend to be funnier than women, especially on panel shows where there's a group of them, because the alpha-male instinct kicks in and they try to out-do eachother.  Women don't have that competitiveness built in them.  Of course, some women are very funny and some men are not, but that's bell curves.

Loose Women is ok of course, panel of bints laughing at men.

"ITV bans male only writers. To discriminate on the grounds of gender is sexual discrimination. How about commissioning comedy shows which are funny regardless of gender, they are pretty thin on the ground."

"Only Fools And Horses written by John Sullivan. Without a female co-writer. Wouldn't be allowed on ITV."

Blackadder or The Peep Show would not been allowed to be shown ITV

FFS - What decent sitcom HAS been written by a team with a woman in it?

Fawlty Towers the best example I can think of.

Friends had about 12; & about 20 male as well of course

Can't argue about Fawlty Towers, but what writing has Connie Booth done before or after, by herself or even with anyone else?

A cynic might suggest she was co-credited for tax reason.

ive just had an idea for a sitcom

Women..know your limits.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w

Hitchens had something to say on this...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7izJggqCoA

Just identify as a female, she can't challenge that.

She could ask you to show her your fannee.

Yet another attack on men

The rate we are going, the only men that will be left will be the Muslim ones....

I would have thought that scripts should be decided by those that attract the biggest audience myself?

Men in our society are being far too fair to women, to the point of being unfair to themselves....


just my own opinion

She could ask you to show her your fannee.

you always bring up awkward questions mouse

Imagine the hue and cry if a man had banned all-women writing teams

I saw an ad for an all male production of A Midsummer Night's Dream while out on my travels yesterday, it quite ruined an otherwise pleasant walk.

I must admit I'd assumed that ITV comedy was written by an algorithm these days.

"channel 4's diverse festival in bradford" ...bet that was a bundle of fing laughs.

Missed it

Too easy to get around these pathetic rules anyway. While they make the tea and sandwiches, just credit them with the writing and Bob's your uncle, or should I say F@anny's your auntie?

When nobody watches comedy anymore because it isn't funny, and the advertisers stop advertising they'll soon replace people like her.

Dr Crippen

They fudge the viewing figures

I find it very hard to believe that pile of manure Doctor Who gets 9 million consolidated viewing figures

Absolutely no one I ask watches it anymore, my aunt said its not the same with a woman, I mean that's coming from a WOMAN ffs

"men are just more entertaining" - said by a woman

Men are better at burping and farting, but when a woman burps or farts it's funnier because of the element of surprise.

Women don't burp and fart

They are very clean and they don't poop either, that's a myth

mouse - you're on fire!

I enjoy 'would I lie to you.'

The token women they have on look bewildered and confused by the comedy going on either side.

ITV not really discriminating  ...only if they said No males/No females
ITV fund themselves so i say let them call the shots
Discrimination laws are daft anyway  , folk should be hired on ability etc
'Alpha Males /Competitiveness'   lol ...  these aren't firefighters or steel workers  they are comedy writers ,not exactly yer typical Aplha males 

I agree that the best comedy over the years has been written by men ....  some of that comedy now though would be considered dated  and maybe not  releveant to a younger audience .

old quality  comedy can still be seen on TV on the cable channels albeit highly clipped

In the Top 50 sitcoms of all time, ITV had one entrant, Rising Damp.
So it doesn't really matter who the writers are as ITV cant do sitcoms.

in that 50 there are some really good entrants and some really bad ones  ... horses for courses and all that .

correct about ITV    although George and Mildred and Auf Wiedesehen were pretty decent ...was Goodnight Sweetheart BBC ?

Absolutely ridiculous, men are just naturally funnier than women.

I have met loads of men who make me laugh, but not one woman.

you make me laugh annie

Not sure how to take that, Baphornet

With a large pinch of salt?

And pepper