Birds Of A Feather cancelled. ITV has no sitcoms for the first time ever!

Birds Of A Feather has been cancelled by ITV after three series on their channel, including two Christmas specials.

The series – which starred Pauline Quirke, Linda Robson and Lesley Joseph, and was created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran – ran on BBC1 from October 16th 1989 to Christmas Eve 1998, over nine series, and then was cancelled, but in their infinite wisdom, ITV revived it on January 2nd 2014. A further two series also kicked off the years 2015 and 2016, but after Christmas specials in 2016 and then in 2017, it never came back and has been cancelled.

I was never a fan of Birds Of A Feather anyway, as well as the fact that it still had quite decent ratings at just under 5m towards the end, it’s quite a revelation that for the first time in its 64-year history, ITV has zero sitcoms for the year on its primary channel. In fact, I struggle to remember when I last laughed at an ITV sitcom other than The Job Club, which was shoved onto ITV2 after one series. Meanwhile, ITV’s Director of Television (made-up title) Kevin Lygo claims viewers can get their comedy requirements from Coronation Street. Er… yeah.

All that said, ITV know they can get the ratings with Love Island, so that will be moving from ITV2 to ITV in due course.