NBC picks up UK sitcom format

Stateside network NBC has ordered a pilot for a new comedy based on a Montreux Silver Rose winning format from UK indie Hartswood Films, the company run by UK sitcom veteran Beryl Vertue.

Based on the format of Coupling, a BBC show written by Vertue's son-in-law Steven Moffat and produced by daughter Sue Vertue, NBC is lining up the pilot for autumn 2003. Production is due to start later this year, with Moffat writing.

The deal came via Ben Silverman's new outfit Reveille. NBC's version of Coupling will be renamed since the UK version is already on air in the US on BBC America and PBS.

The show has also sold into 22 territories, courtesy of BBC Worldwide. Hartswood is due to start production on a third series of Coupling for the BBC over the summer. The show is often seen as the UK's answer to Friends, following a bunch of cohabiting urban 20-somethings through their relationships, careers and sex lives.

{I'm something of a pioneer of selling comedy formats into the US,{ Vertue senior told a crowded hall of delegates here at the Banff TV Festival. {I first sold the format to Till Death Do Us Part into the US, which became All in the Family, and Steptoe & Son, which became Sandford & Son.{

More recently, Vertue sold the format to the BBC sitcom Men Behaving Badly into the US, though she admitted that the reversion wasn't a success and blamed the casting. {They miscast the lead role just because the actor in question was a big star,{ she said.