"KYTV" (1989) TV series 1989-1993

User Rating:

7.5/10   

Directors:

John Kilby
John Stroud

Writers:

Terence Dackombe (additional material)
Philip Pope (additional material)

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3

Release Date:

12 May 1989 (UK)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

A headlong chase for ratings at the expense of quality

Plot Keywords:

Based On Radio Series | Satellite TV | TV Shopping Network | Spoof | Deliberately Bad Dubbing

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Helen Atkinson-Wood	...	Anna Daptor / ... (19 episodes, 1989-1993)
Angus Deayton	...	Mike Channel / ... (19 episodes, 1989-1993)
Michael Fenton Stevens	...	Martin Brown / ... (19 episodes, 1989-1993)
Geoffrey Perkins	...	Mike Flex / ... (19 episodes, 1989-1993)
Philip Pope	...	Continuity Announcer / ... (19 episodes, 1989-1993)

Runtime:

30 min (19 episodes)

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Trivia:

A TV version of the 1980s radio series "Radio Active" which lampooned commercial radio stations. The characters from Radio Active moved to the then-new field of satellite TV.

Quotes:

[An advertisement is shown]
Voice-over: Buy a KYTV satellite dish, and you could win a family holiday to Paris...A year's supply of Versace clothing...And, you could live forever.... That's right, everlasting life could be yours, when you buy a KYTV Satellite Dish.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Comedy Connections: Spitting Image (#3.2)" (2005)

Portents of Doom

This spoof of the then embryonic SKY TV satellite network surfaced just after UK Television was deregulated in the late 1980's. This meant that the whereas up to that point you'd had 4 television channels, regulated by government to control content and quality and of course free to view (bar the licence fee that funded and indeed funds the BBC) – now anyone in theory could add a t.v channel onto the new satellite based service. In 1989, despite the promise of more channels and therefore more choice, the curious euphemism for repeats, SKY was still considered a bit of a joke – in contrast to the relatively high quality of Terrestrial broadcasting and the pool of talent it had monopolised for 50 years, SKY seemed tacky and low-brow by comparison – toe curling (un)original programming acting as water breaks between streams of cheap US imports, lashings of repeats (something people had always complained about – now they were willing to pay to see them) and as I recall,dreadful Euro stations that no-one wanted to watch – one channel was just a burning fireplace. KYTV sent up this absurd low-brow Daily Star bullsh*t. Coaxing the proles by buying up all the football and therefore bribing them with their own money to take up a service they'd previous enjoyed for nothing, SKY appealed to the viewers worst instincts. Why watch original comedy, documentaries and domestically produced drama made to quota when you could pay £30 a month to see wall to wall movies, footie and of course tits on some of the more racy German T.V networks? Deayton, Atkinson-Wood and co. made it all look very funny – appalling programmes, shameless advertising, terrible presenters. Why KYTV seems even better now than then is that it predicted something no-one could imagine, that one day 10m people would be subscribing to the visual equivalent of dysentery. Who in 1989 would have believed that by 2006 SKY would be a major player in the UK TV marketplace and that despite being no better now than it was then, it would have convinced enough people to pay to support its sports monopoly and maintain a network that offered no original content – just ream upon ream of stuff ripped from the US broadcasters thus allowing Sky to keep its costs down and make maximum bread for News International and that Australian American Scrotum that sits on the top of the cash pile. Meanwhile TV has become more niche marketed because everyone in UK broadcasting wants us to become American – apparently we don't want channels with varied schedules, catering for a variety of audiences; that's akin to some kind of antiquated lunacy. Now audiences decline, hundreds of channels sprout up with nothing to show thus more repeats, low budgets, rock bottom quality programmes and of course no innovation because the market makes risk to, er, risky. That's the current state of play and that, not KYTV is the real joke. If it went out today it'd be part of the Sky Digital package.