Future of Sitcoms

Another reason that critics will argue that his contributed to the death of the sitcom is digital TV. Most of the population has now got digital TV services from SKY, Virgin etc. and this now means that they have a larger variety of programmes to choose from, leaving the television market saturated as the sitcom now has too many competitors. Also just as the 70s was the Era of the Sitcom, the turn of the century has become the Era of the Reality Television shows, there popularity has increased incredibly and dealt a blow to the situation comedy.

Sitcoms are also becoming too repetitive. The same jokes and situations that are being shown today are also present in sitcoms from the 1970s. The writers are sticking to ideas of only a domestic and/or workplace comedy, this idea now seems outdated and people are now looking for a new environment for a Sitcom to take place in.

The internet has become very popular and figures show that more people spend time online these days than watching TV. However people will use this argument to say that the sitcoms have not lost touch with reality but instead the internet has become much more popular than television and that less people watch TV overall nowadays compared to before.

Sitcoms in the modern era have been very popular, one of the most notable being "The Office", it was very popular because there were two series to it, usually these days most British sitcoms have only one series. The Office also had a Christmas special, this really showed how popular it was because everybody wants to watch something good on Christmas day. The Christmas special had approximately 12 million viewers.

Another example to show that the genre is not dieing is "Last of the Summer Wine" this sitcom has been running since the 70s and is still airing on the BBC today. If the situation comedy was really dieing out, wouldn't this sitcom have stopped airing many years ago?

There are signs that the situation comedy is still going strong. "Gavin and Stacy" won two BAFTAS, and the "Peoples Choice Award", this award shows us that the modern audience still see sitcoms as a valuable aspect.

There are also major awards for sitcoms, so there must be a reason that these awards are still there. It is a major award because the situation comedy is seen as something that is still valuable to TV. "Peep Show" won the best situation comedy award for 2008.

I think that the situation comedy will need to be developed otherwise it may end up dieing out. First off the sitcom needs to think of new situations to investigate because the jokes are becoming too repetitive in my opinion and people are now easily becoming bored because of this.

I also think that situation comedies will use other means of media to broadcast the future, as stated before, the internet has become very popular and I think that producers should make good use of it by broadcasting sitcoms on sites such as YouTube.

I believe that sitcoms for teenagers are currently lacking, I think that the situation comedies can develop by making teenagers their target market. Then they can advertise and broadcast their on social networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace which are very popular among teenagers, this is sure to help them to keep the sitcom alive.