Tony Hayers' death is reminiscent of the real life death of the children's entertainer Rod Hull who died in 1999 after falling from the roof of his house while trying to fix a TV aerial.
Title reference: Towering Inferno (1974).
The character Peter Linehan, head of News and Current Affairs at the BBC, is named for Graham Linehan, who appears in one of the episodes as an RTE exec.