Bye bye Benny, hello Hollyoaks for BBC America

His saucy slapstick may have lost favour in Britain more than two decades ago but Benny Hill remains that rare thing: a long running hit in America.
    
However, not for much longer, if the BBC has its way. The corporation's US commercial arm, which currently airs the show twice a day to millions of Americans, has decided to axe the comedy because it no longer reflects Britain.

The programme, first broadcast in 1955, is to be ditched along with other British favourites - The Avengers, Keeping Up Appearances and Are You Being Served? - to make way for more contemporary shows.

Executives feel their outdated, often sexist jokes belong to a less politically correct Britain which is long gone. They think that shows such as Hollyoaks, the teenage soap set in Chester, Wire in the Blood, a crime drama about a forensic psychologist, and Footballers' Wives better reflect the Britain of today.

Continues:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/05/ntv05.xml

I wish they had added a couple of other more contemporary shows, like Waking the Dead. I don't tend to watch BBCAmerica because it doesn't have much variety and there are definitely some much better shows that what's currently there.

Waking the Dead is on.  It is just aired when no one is awake! 

Footballer's Wives reflects the Britain of today??     Good thing I live here and know what reality is really like. 

Waking the Dead is on.  It is just aired when no one is awake! 

Oooh, Oooh, Oooh!! I have DVR I'll have to look for it and set it to record!!!

ETA: I just looked on the BBCAmerica website and I don't see it anywhere. 

Oh, well, it was a couple of months ago on BBC America.  But I just recently DVRed an episode off of one of the PBS stations.  Do you get the New Hampshire PBS stations? 

Nope, but you gave me the idea to check WGBH and it's having an episode tonight at 10!! 

It also has The Vicar of Dibley, I've seen most of the episodes but I love it.

I didn't realize public broadcasting here would have so many British shows, I'll have to do more looking around.

BBC America, which is free to air and makes its money from advertising, has been broadcasting across the US for nine years and is available in 54 million homes.

Free to air?  Really?  Last time I had BBCA I had to pay for it as part of a cable package - granted, I'm sure most of their income does come from advertising.  Not exactly related to the thread, but it drives me batty when journalists screw up things like this.

We don't get it free here either. It's part of an additional cost cable package. 

PBS in our area does show quite a few British shows, but it's a bit like BBCA where the majority are older shows.  The weird thing is they just randomly show one episode of some shows for no apparent reason.  They showed an episode of Dr. Who the other day, just one episode, and it's not on their schedule and doesn't seem like they'll be showing it again. Makes no sense, but it's a nice surprise when I happen to catch something not normally shown here.

PBS in our area does show quite a few British shows, but it's a bit like BBCA where the majority are older shows.

The Buffalo, NY/Toronto, ON PBS channel lets members vote on what British shows they want on.  Unfortunately, most people vote on the really old ones.  Although, Coupling was on (not new, new, but not too old). 

Coupling is one for our PBS too. Waking the Dead is on there and it's a current show. The rest are older ones. Fawlty Towers, The Vicar of Dibley (although that one just ended for real this winter), Keeping Up Appearances...

BBCAmerica is part of our cable package too.

Are You Being Served has been a staple of our local PBS for years. I grew up watching it and it's still on, at least 3 or 4 nights a week, late in the evening. I used to want Mrs. Slocombe's hair