Radio Active (radio Series) - Television Adaptation

Television Adaptation

The show transferred to TV as KYTV, which produced 20 episodes (a pilot, three series and one Children in Need special) between 1989 and 1993. The TV show was written and produced by largely the same team as had worked on Radio Active, and Angus Deayton, Helen Atkinson-Wood, Michael Fenton Stevens, Geoffrey Perkins and Phillip Pope again comprised the main cast.

Some of the Radio Active scripts and/or plot devices originally heard on the radio series were reused for the TV show, though the central setting changed from a local radio station to a satellite television broadcaster, and a number of new features and scenarios which parodied television convention were added. Spoof commercials continued to broadcast, along with parodies of the self-promotions and branding which were a common feature of television stations at this point.

Several key characters from Radio Active transferred to KYTV largely unchanged from their radio incarnations, including Mike Channel, Mike Flex, Anna Daptor and Martin Brown, who formed the central presentation team for KYTV's programmes; other characters including Anna Rabies and the Right Reverend Reverend Wright also transferred across. Phillip Pope's main character in KYTV was as the station's unnamed continuity announcer, although as with the radio series he (and the other regulars) appeared in multiple roles. The station's owner was again played by Deayton, though the character name was changed from Sir Norman Tonsil to Sir Kenneth Yellowhammer for the TV series, to serve as one of the show's thinly-veiled references to Sky TV.