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Television Media Math

The Formula for a Successful Sitcom 291

Posted by CmdrTaco from the everything-is-just-math dept.
indylaw writes "A team of scientists commissioned by British satellite channel UKTV Gold has developed a mathematical expression to predict the success of TV sitcoms. Using the formula [((R x D + V) x F) + S]/A, they determined that "Only Fools and Horses" and "The Office" are the best of British comedy, while "According to Bex" (which is being adapted for CBS in the fall and will star Jenna Elfman) scored in the bottom five."
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The Formula for a Successful Sitcom More

The Formula for a Successful Sitcom

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  • The original Grauniad article: (Score:5, Informative)

    by alanw ( 1822 ) * <alan@wylie.me.uk> on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:35PM (#12771103) Homepage
    Here [guardian.co.uk] is the original article, complete with scores for the top and bottom 5 shows.
    • So, any guesses as to whether the relationships and always-1 weights of the components of this formula were literally, or merely figuratively, pulled out of a hat?

      • Re:The original Grauniad article: (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Golias ( 176380 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @03:05PM (#12772350)
        Bah.

        Let's apply this "formula" to the recent NBC sitcom, "Friends."

        R: 3.

        At the time of the show's start, Courney Cox was far and away the most recognizable celebrity on the show, due to her recent stint on the failed CBS drama "China Beach", and the fact that she was the girl who danced with Springsteen in that music video. Almost nobody remembered that Jenifer Aniston was in "Leprechan."

        D: Zero. The characters all had rather low opinions of themselves, considering that they lived in the best two apartments in all of New York City.

        3 x 0 = 0

        V: 8.

        It didn't suit everybody's tastes, but love it or hate it, the dialog on that show was its greatest strength. Otherwise dull scenes hinged entirely on the Chandler character just happening to think of the funniest thing you could possibly say at any given moment.

        0 + 8 = 8

        F: 1

        There was an episode where Joey got a hernia from lifting weights, and I think Rachel bumped her head once or twice, but never badly enough to mess up Jenifer Aniston's perfect hair. I believe that was pretty much it.

        8 x 1 = 8

        S: 1

        All six characters began the show as twentysomethings who were just starting out in life, and happened to luck into huge rent-controlled apartments. While wealth varied, class differences were pretty much non-existant. The poorest two character on the show in the first season, Joey, was the richest several years later. It seems that it was originally planned that the story of Rachel's fall and rise (Jewish American Princess - coffee shop girl - fashion-world executive) was to be one of the main story arcs, but it was almost never exploited beyond the first one or two episodes.

        8 + 1 = 9

        A: 10

        The characters on Friends always came out on top. Even the worst disasters which came up were understood by the audience to be temporary setbacks. Just about every crazy scheme in the pursuit of either sex or money tended to pan out.

        A good example is the "hernia" episode I mentioned earlier. Joey gets a hernia, but he had let his insurance lapse, and needed a paying acting job to get medical coverage for the surgery. After several failed auditions, he lands a part playing a dying man, because the pain of his injury made him so convincing as somebody who was suffering.

        8 / 10 = 0.8

        In other words, by this formula, Friends had no chance of ever catching on with TV audiences! What the hell was NBC thinking when they put that show in the slot once occupied by The Cosby Show and Cheers!?!?!?

        Since the show ended it's miserable ratings failure of a run, NBC has been showing The Apprentice, starring Donald Trump, in that time slot. By this formula, The Apprentice has a much better chance of success as a sitcom.
        • While I don't disagree entirely with your premise [that it might be a stretch to apply a mathematical formula to determine success of comedy], I think you may be off a bit in your definitions.

          I think they're talking about recognizability as it relates to the character, not the actor. In other words, how well the audience can identify with the archetype on the show. In the ensemble, you had many different character types that I assume you could at least identify with [or as someone you could know] in any gi
        • R: 3.

          At the time of the show's start, Courney Cox was far and away the most recognizable celebrity

          Whoa. Stop there. First misunderstanding : it's recognizability of the CHARACTERS. Not the actors. Practically everyone in the UK knows a Derrick Trotter or a David Brent.
    • Do we know what the values used for R D F S V and A are - ie, are they values from 0-10, or a percentage? The best I can do would be "X was good, but it wasn't as good as Y", which is hard to put into numbers. Not to mention that things like verbal wit and the main character will change for each person..

    • Re:The original Grauniad article: (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @02:12PM (#12771631) Homepage Journal
      Seems like an interesting pile of horseshit, as it usual for these "mathematical formula for ..." stories.

      Can someone explain to me how exactly Blackadder and Fawlty Towers scored so relatively low compared to The Office and Only Fools and Horses? Are Edmund or Basil notably less "Recognisable" or "Deluded" about their grandeur than Del or David? Certainly there are about the same number of successful plans, and at least the same level of difference in social status (Edmund is to Baldrick as Del is to ... nope, I'm drawing a blank). The only things left are "Verbal wit in the script" and "Number of times someone falls over or is injured" ... is Only Fools and Horses really that much wittier than Blackadder? Does The Office really have that many more pratfalls and injuries than Fawlty Towers?

      I think it's nice that they've come up with a half assed justification to prefer their favourite comedies, but it really isn't significantly less subjective than asking a random person whether they like the show or not.

      Jedidiah.
      • Can someone explain to me how exactly Blackadder and Fawlty Towers scored so relatively low compared to The Office and Only Fools and Horses?
        Yes, they said the formula for a successful sitcom, not necessarily the formula for a quality sitcom. Apparently, having a huge nerd cult following doesn't mean success as much as having more people watch your show. Duh.
        • I don't care about success or quality, I'm asking what numbers they plugged into their formulas to get the very different results - I see no significant differences in the scores for the variables they used - but perhaps you can tell me which of R, D, V, S, F, and A where so startlingly different for Blackadder and The Office or Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses.

          For the record I am just as much a fan of The Office and Only Fools and Horses as Blackadder and Fawlty Towers - I just can't see why the sc

  • Now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:36PM (#12771117)
    Now make a formula that can tell if a Slashdot-article is a dupe.

  • So... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Bean9000 ( 841843 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:36PM (#12771125) Homepage
    What's the formula for coming up with the values for the variables that fill in this formula?

    • Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)

      by justforaday ( 560408 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:51PM (#12771357)
      According to the Guardian article someone posted:
      Comedic value is determined by multiplying the recognisability of the main character (R) by their delusions of grandeur (D). This is added to the verbal wit of the script (V) and the total is multiplied by the amount someone falls over or suffers a physical injury (F).

      "The difference in social status between the highest- and lowest-ranking characters (S) is added and finally the total is divided by the success of any scheme or stratagem in the show (A). Each term in the formula is assigned a value up to a maximum of 10 to give an overall scientific score."
    • You come up with them in the same way that you come up with a technical analysis of a stock's charts: historical performance. Unfortunately, the results only serve to predict history.

      Surely this formula is a joke.

  • Oh, I get it. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yotto ( 590067 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:38PM (#12771162) Homepage
    It's a joke.

    And I usually like British humor. Strange, that.

  • What's the cost of a formula? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pieterh ( 196118 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:41PM (#12771202) Homepage
    Here's mine:

    S = intelligence and wit of the script
    C = degree of variety and contrast of the characters
    W = wise reflection on real life ironies
    N = names that you remember
    B = budget of producers

    And the formula is:

    (S + C + W + N) / B

    That'll be 5c, please.

  • Even better: Success = T#ts + As# (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vile Slime ( 638816 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:41PM (#12771207)
    Need I say more

    • I dispute your theorem! (Score:5, Informative)

      by digitalamish ( 449285 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:46PM (#12771281)
      My evidence: The Pamela Anderson crapfest Stacked.
      • I have mod points, but I'd prefer to counter that statement. A few months ago, I probably would have agreed. However, my wife, who normally abhors anything with too much T&A, started watching Stacked. She absolutely loves it. The humor is actually witty at times and the acting is acceptable. It's far better than most of the reality shows (Dancing With The Stars?) and better than a good deal of other sitcoms. I was pretty surprised.

        The fact that there's a lot of T&A is an added bonus. :)
      • I dispute your disputation, on the sandy grounds of that be-atch made of silicon.
    • ---- Go ahead, mod me down, I'll just post it again and you lose your mod points

      Doh! <slaps forehead> Why didn't I think of that before? Thanks.

      Yeah, bring on the T&A. After all it made Baywatch one of the most popular shows in the world. Of course, T&A alone can't save every bad show. Charmed is unwatchable even with three hot babes. Alias is barely watchable with Garner. ST: V'ger was watchable with Six of Nine.

  • I hate these news-grabbing formulae (Score:5, Funny)

    by P-Nuts ( 592605 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:42PM (#12771235)
    How on earth do you go about measuring any of the variables in their formula. For example, D, deluesions of grandeur. Do they just order a delusionometer from a scientific supplies catalogue?

    I've come up with my own formula: L=(nP+sqrt(C)/i). It calulates lameness of formulae (L) according to number of terms in arbitrary units (n), popularity of subject matter (P), column inches devoted to the formula in mainstream news (C), and intelligence of the researchers who came up with it (i). My formula has a lameness of only 4.7, but their is much lamer at 205.3.

    So there.

  • For American audiences (Score:3, Funny)

    by LoraxLorax ( 812936 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:43PM (#12771243)
    They forgot the following bit of the equation: ^T+A

  • The most formulaic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ndansmith ( 582590 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:44PM (#12771249)
    In my opinion, the most formulaic sitcom in the United States in recent years was Home Improvement.

    1. Tim wants to make some sort of souped-up home improvement.
    2. Tim makes fun of Al.
    3. Tim has a hillarious accident on Tool Time.
    4. Tim offends someone close to him.
    5. Tim seeks advice from Wilson.
    6. Tim misquotes Wilson when making ammends.
    7. Everyone is happy!

    It was totally mindless yet entertaining.

    • This show is a major reason I don't watch TV any more.

      I was embarassed to be watching it, even alone.

    • Can't unseat the king! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gosand ( 234100 )
      In my opinion, the most formulaic sitcom in the United States in recent years was Home Improvement.

      No way it can touch Three's Company. That was crap TV at its finest.

    • For an old sit-com, 'I Love Lucy' had an even less complicated formula and was still a major success:

      1. Lucy get's an Idea
      2. Lucy screws up whatever it is she was going to do
      3. Lucy tries to hide the screw-up
      4. Hilarity ensues when she gets found out

    • Scooby Doo (Score:3, Informative)

      by dmaxwell ( 43234 )
      1. Mysterious Creature is terrorizing the town/amusement park/mansion residents/......
      2. Mystery Machine rolls into town.
      3. Creature encounters Mystery Machine Crew.
      4. Shaggy and Scooby run away and hide in the kitchen/walk in freezer/....
      5. Thelma notices something strange.
      6. Daphne and Fred say inane things and Fred tries to play Strong Leader.
      7. Shaggy and Scooby happily raid fridge until rousted by Creature.

      8. Thelma notices more clues. Fred plays Captain Obvious.
      9. Creature terrorizes Shaggy and Scoo

  • Dad's Army (Score:3, Informative)

    by Skiron ( 735617 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:44PM (#12771251)
    In all these so called 'best of's', Dad's Army never gets a look in.

    To me, that was, and still is the funniest comedy series ever made, and it is timeless - still funny as hell after all this time.

    "You stupid boy".

    • Re:Dad's Army (Score:3, Informative)

      by FatRatBastard ( 7583 )
      Dad's Army rules. Brilliant show. In terms of older BBC/ITV shows I also loved Open all Hours (which by some miracle our local PBS station actually showed for a few weeks) and Porridge.

      Must say, other than Father Ted (which was ok) I can't disagree with their top 5.

  • If post hoc analysis is so great... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:45PM (#12771264) Homepage Journal
    we'd all know what mutual funds to put our money into
  • "Good Neighbors" (aka "The Good Life") is arguably the best and most successful British to American sitcom of all time. I based this on my parents love of the show and the forced watching I had to do as a child. If my parents made me watch it, it must have been good for me.
    • Given that I've never heard of the show, I tend to doubt that it's the most successful of all time, although I don't have any ratings figures at my fingertips to back up my assertion.

      I'd be willing to get that on a list of successful British to American comedies, Sanford and Son would rank pretty high.

      • yeah but the American version is sooo different from the US one. Just like Archie Bunker was a sad refelection of the so much more nasty Alf Garnet old man Sanford was a much milder version of old man Steptoe (it was a radio show before it was a TV one so the characters probably had to be drawn pretty starkly)

        Besides 'three's company' was sadly probably the most successfull one ... (despite using the exact same script for the first episode and ruining a whole bunch of jokes by renaming the lead male char

    • OK, let's face it. Your father wanted Felicity Kendall. That's the only reason anyone could be corralled into watching that show.

  • Simpsons, the sitcom (Score:3, Informative)

    by 3770 ( 560838 ) on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:46PM (#12771291) Homepage
    I saw a Simpsons episode once where they switched from their normal format to the format of the Sitcom. They had typical one liners with the obligatory recorded audience laughter sounds.

    Seeing it that way made me realise how shallow and weak sitcoms really were.

    I was of course watching friends as usual 2 weeks later. But regardless of that, it was an interesting "experiment".
    • sure you didn't mean Scrubs? they had an episode like that, including different cameras, makeup, costumes and a celebrity guest.
    • While I don't particularly mind a studio audience or laughter track, it can be annoying when there's a distinct and isolated laugh coming from one person. Come on guys, you know what I mean, that really grating laugh that sounds like it's coming from some fat woman who can't shut her mouth and who shrieks and whoops like a banshee at the dentist. You just hope that Joey or Monica will pick up a Zulu spear from behind the sofa and hurl it into the crowd but it never happens.
  • Would you invest your own money in a new sitcom project if it scored high on this scale?

    Are any of the folks behind the formula doing so?

  • ... "According to Bex" (which is being adapted for CBS in the fall and will star Jenna Elfman) scored in the bottom five.

    If the formula were applied to American sitcoms, what percentage of airing sitcoms would have been spared production and airing, tormenting viewers, only to be cancelled halfway through the first season?

    • Every American adaptation of a British sitcom has been truly dreadful.

      It'd be like the BBC "adapting" Star Trek or Stargate, complete with spray painted washing up bottles and bits of string showing on the spacecraft.

      Just show them.

  • By that metric (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ajs ( 35943 ) <ajs.ajs@com> on Thursday June 09, 2005 @01:50PM (#12771332) Homepage Journal
    Using their calculations, a sitcom that starred an elvis impersonator who thinks he's God, and features absolutely nothing him trying to stand up on a moving ship for 1/2 hour every episode would be the world's most successful sitcom...

    Yeah, I don't think you meant to factor in Wit as an additive feature....

    This is usually the problem with such a formula. It isn't the discovery of any kind of fundamental feature of the sitcom, it's just an attempt at an explanation of why the CURRENT set of sitcoms are good or bad.

    My formula looks like this:
    Originality * Quality * Acting
    The real problem is that humor is FAR harder to write than drama (ask anyone who has written both successfully), and so getting good writers is far more important for a sitcom than it is for a drama. Not that it's not hugely important for a drama, just moreso for a sitcom.
  • Naturally i have not read TFA because it is an obvious plug, but I thought I would give my unsolicited opinion about the best sitcom ever made.

    No, it is not MASH, nor Cheers, nor Faulty Towers nor Sienfeld although they are all good shows.

    It is News Radio. A brilliant show with the best comic talent assembled in one show since the good days of SNL. It is also very well written, the characters all compliment the actors abilities. Also, it has the only woman character ever to appear on American TV that is b
    • Also, it has the only woman character ever to appear on American TV that is both sexy and intelligent.

      Holy shit, YES! Khandi Alexander [newsradioart.com] was and still is hot even though she now wears scrubs on CSI: Miami. Talk about a pair of legs.

      Unfortunately the link above does not do justice to her.

    • Actually, Sports Night (which was also a hell of a good show) had Felicity Huffman, who was also both sexy and intelligent.
    • I really liked NewsRadio early on. I think the show could have survived the demise of Bill (Phil Hartman) if they had just continued on and NOT brought in John Lovitz. Is there ANYTHING that Lovitz is in where he plays anything mildly amusing?

      'Lovitz' combined with the storyline just running out between Dave and Lisa made this unwatchable in the final seasons.
  • This is fun, let's make up our own formulas.

    C=Male comedian of moderate fame.
    W=Wife that is far skinnier/prettier/smarter than he is.
    T=Title that is a takeoff on a famous phrase.
    K=number of kids.
    N=Wacky neighbor.
    E=Shown in a 'weekend' time slot.

    CW+(TKN)^-E
  • "According to Bex" (which is being adapted for CBS in the fall and will star Jenna Elfman) scored in the bottom five."

    I think I've discovered a simplification they could do.

  • while "According to Bex" (which is being adapted for CBS in the fall and will star Jenna Elfman) scored in the bottom five."

    Hardly matters. Coupling, at least the first three seasons, was an outstanding British comedy. The American adaptation was so painfully bad that NBC didn't even bother to show all that they had filemd (and they even aired all the filmed episodes of the awful and short lived LAX, so what do that say about their own opnion of the highly promoted US version of Coupling). There is proof


  • Somewhere in there.
    Somewhere. I know it's right
    in front of me. The pattern.
    They say it's chaos, it can't
    be understood, too much
    complexity.

    History it's there.
    Lurking, shaping.
    structuring, hiding, right
    beneath the surface.

    The cycling of disease epidemics,
    the wax and wane of Caribou populations
    in the Arctic, sunspot cycles,
    the rise and fall of the
    Nile and yes! the New York Stock
    Exchange, they are all the
    same.

    I'll find this structure,
    this order, this perfection.

    Turn lead into gold.
    The first. Right here. Rig
  • Without bothering to look up any reviews on imdb or netflix, rotten tomatoes etc. Many movies and television shows are panned as derivative and formulaic. I'm not sure relying on any formula will guarantee success, or even acceptance. I would hope that there are still creative people out there who are being taken seriously by producers and studios. Oh, wait, that's what indie is for.

    OTOH, perhaps bad shows are merely based on the _wrong_ formula. I leave it as an excercise for the reader to find a rev
  • Black Books [wikipedia.org]

    Quite possibly the funniest British sitcom of the past 5 years and it's not on the fucking list. :(

    You can't get much better than a drunken Irish misanthrope, a hairy assistant and a dizzy cow.
  • Frankly I think one of the funniest brticoms I've seen lately is Black Books. A close second is My Family (reminds me of the 80s family based sitcoms but with a British edge).
  • soooo, what is the formula for a *bad* sitcom?
    • -[((R x D + V) x F) + S]/A

    • Re:now all we need... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by JadeNB ( 784349 )
      As mentioned in the article summary, the formula for a bad sitcom is

      1. Notice that a certain British show is successful.

      2. Make an American show with the same name and a desperate and flawed attempt to capture the feel of the original.

      I guess the obligatory next step is

      3. PROFIT!!!

      but it doesn't seem to have worked that way.

      By the way, is it just me, or is the text we're supposed to read getting much harder to read? (Maybe I'm a script after all.)

    • if(show == sitcom)
      {
      show_quality = bad;
      }

  • I'm not sure how this would account for the success of Friends and Seinfeld, which I think would score pretty badly on this formula.
    • In any market the successful way to get a bad idea to be popular is to *repeatedly* *bash* *the* *idea* *into* *their* *minds*...

      Like in a given hour on TBS you may see a commercial for "friends" or family guy at every break [repeatedly during the same break]. Then you see the little pop ups during ths show at the bottom, etc...

      I imagine shows like Friends or Joey wouldn't get half the audience they do if they had to rely on people ACTUALLY LIKING IT for what it's worth...

      Tom

  • My main beef is that the sitcoms themselves are the problem. Whether they are formulaic and derivative or not, the genre itself is getting stale.

    Some of the tv shows that make me laugh include cynical mockumentaries [imdb.com], a breezy comedy of manners [imdb.com], and an utterly weird [imdb.com] sketch comedy series. Not to mention a couple of the home [imdb.com] grown [imdb.com] entries.

    Not a sitcom in sight.

    ...laura

  • Yeah but, No but, Yeah but, No but, Yeah but...

    They're just gonna take like only fools and horses right and then make it in the US with the Trotters living in like Venace Beach or something and driving a ford pinto and then they take out all the swear words like plonker and bollocks and stuff cause the yanks don't know shit about stuff like that and then they put in all this cheasy yank stuff like chearleaders and baseball and try to make it funny again but it ends up getting well crap cause thay cant insu
    • cause there's like 20 old episodes of friends and the simpsons on all the same time and half the time it's just adverts and stuff.

      Add in a channel solely devoted to people playing darts, and you've just described UK television. (at least, during my last visit.) Oh, and commercials for ringtones.

      Oh, I kid, I kid. I love bbc sitcoms, but they never seemed to be on while i was watching. It was always either Friends or the Jerry Springer Opera... ...or darts.

      m-

  • All I needed to know it would be in the bottom five.

    Who needs a math formula?
  • Using the formula [((R x D + V) x F) + S]/A, they determined that "Only Fools and Horses" and "The Office" are the best of British comedy,

    So this puts the formula back in formulaic?

    What kind of head trauma do you have to suffer from to enjoy "The Office"? I really want to know. I forced myself to watch the first 2/3 of the first episode. I'm surprised I even lasted that long. Now if you really want the best of recent British comedy watch "Coupling". [bbc.co.uk]

    The BBC has this nice section called Get Writing: [bbc.co.uk]
  • Ok, I understand that this is probably a joke (and if not Bob help us all) but has no one noticed that this is a very british centric formula? I doubt Americans think people falling down and highlighting class differences (both in the formula) are nearly as funny as Britons. Anyone who's traveled a lot can tell you not all comedy translates. Actually I'm surprised they didn't add a variable for the number of times male characters dress up as women.
  • Maybe it works in England with the class differential thing, but the two markets I know something about, NZ and the US, it doesn't quite have the same effect (i.e. a different equation should work.)
  • I notice from watching the news and talking to Americans that America is a much more class-ridden society than modern Britain, yet there is almost no representation of this in the shows we see over here.

    Is class a taboo subject in America? Many of the comment here make it seem so.

    TWW

  • Father Ted Third! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by meehawl ( 73285 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {todhsals+maps.lwaheem}> on Thursday June 09, 2005 @05:44PM (#12774213) Homepage Journal
    Father Ted is third [guardian.co.uk], beating out Fawlty Towers. All is well with the world of algorithmic sitcom ratings.

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