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Q: I remember watching reruns of "Are You Being Served?" and "Keeping Up Appearances" together, late at night, when I was younger. Why did they air together? Were they related somehow?

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

Aside from being two of the most successful sitcoms to come out of Great Britain, the only direct link between "Are You Being Served?" and "Keeping Up Appearances" is that they were both produced by and aired (originally) on the BBC. However, that's true of a huge percentage of British shows —particularly back in the '80s and '90s, when these shows were being made — and it's especially true of the British shows that have been made available on TV over here.

The reruns you're referring to aired on PBS, which, as a publicly funded broadcaster, is the U.S.'s counterpart to the BBC. PBS has a long tradition of buying BBC shows to air on this side of the pond as the shared language and the fact that the BBC has a lot more money to spend on programming make it a natural partnership.

They also, of course, have the simple fact of their nationality in common. Over there, these were two fairly different shows that aired years apart from one another, but in North America they made sense as a one-hour block because they were British shows about British people doing British things, and that gave them far more in common with each other than with the rest of the North American TV programming airing alongside them.

 

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