Originally Posted by
Fudd:
“Has anyone even heard of any comedy commissions which they could air in that slot?
”
Originally Posted by sn_22:
“I think ITV comedy has become a bit of a running gag at the Edinburgh TV Festival. Each year, Fincham plays lip-service to it, but then doesn't really bother. There's no point him bothering, either, if the best slot they can manage is Thursday at 8.30. I'm pretty sure it'd die quickly. If they want to relaunch comedy, I reckon they have to do it at the weekend around the big Entertainment behemoths.”
They have commissioned two full comedy series. Great Night Out (terrible title) is due to air this Autumn (it's already been filmed). It is 6x60 mins and post-watershed though so won't go in the Thursday slot. The more promising sounding The Job Lot is due to air in 2013 and does look set for that slot (it's 6x30 mins). More info
here.
I do agree though that their comedy output is a disgrace, especially if you look at what Sky have been doing. They have brought in a head of comedy though (previously they just used the head of entertainment) so hopefully we'll see an improvement. I won't get my hopes up though. They'll air these two and that'll be it.

Having said that, ITV2 seem to making strides - their new comedy Plebs sounds interesting and they've acquired 3 US comedies too, so comedy will have more of a presence on ITV in the near future.
The Corrie Years is a really lazy use of the slot but it'll probably rate alright. It's 6 episodes this time though so don't expect much else to turn up until after Christmas. It's probably worth trying comedy in that slot though. Running it around BGT/XF would be good too, but if they want it on weeknights they could do worse.