In my last post, I took you through the Media Industries question for Friends and some points you might consider.
Remember that a Media Industries question will look at the ways in which industry influences the production, presentation and broadcast of sitcoms. You'll need to consider both how production companies work and what sorts of decisions they have to make that ultimately persuade a television company to purchase and broadcast their sitcom. For The IT Crowd, things are quite different. NBC is a privately-run media channel as part of a wider conglomerate that makes its money from advertising and answers to shareholders who seek profits. The Channel 4 Group, which commissioned and aired The IT Crowd, is a public service broadcaster. Though it likewise makes its revenue from advertising, all profits are reinvested.
This makes C4G's aims and values quite different. Where NBC sought a replacement to Cheers that was cool, edgy but still family friendly for a mass audience appeal, C4G's mission statement celebrates risky and provocative programming that explores niches and brings new experiences to audiences.
Accordingly, where Friends is a group of young, trendy (and notably all-white) 20-somethings in New York, The IT Crowd brings us a more diverse group in the form of Moss, Roy and Jen in their less-than-glamorous London basement office. It also explores the geek and nerd subcultures, derided for much of the 80s and 90s and only now becoming accepted and respected. The IT Crowd's 10PM timeslot is way past the UK watershed of 9PM, and the show's content matches. Blue and black humour can be explicit alongside stronger themes with plenty of profanity and adult topics.
Though the show's subject matter initially appears unfashionable, C4G would have considered the fact that the show's early-2000s run coincided with a time when more and more young workers were transitioning to dull office and desk work. It's plausible that C4G wanted to echo the success of the BBC's very popular and successful The Office, which had finished the year before.
As NBC did with Friends, C4G took a risk on young new talent, as is part of its ethos. Richard Ayoade, Chris O'Dowd and Katherine Parkinson were, at the time, relative unknowns.
Mitigating C4G's risk hugely was the production company and writer. Talkback Thames, a well-known production studio, coupled with writer Graham Linehan (who had penned two previously successful C4 sitcoms in the form of Father Ted and Black Books) would have made the choice much easier for C4G.
It ended up being a shrewd move, as The IT Crowd found itself among the first sitcoms and shows attempting to push geek and nerd culture into the more mainstream position it enjoys today.