Under The Counter was gripped by ITV’s recent hit drama about the Horizon scandal, Mr Bates vs The Post Office.
As readers probably don’t need reminding, the show told the story of Alan Bates, one of thousands of sub postmasters who were wrongly accused of theft due to shortfalls in their accounts caused by the Post Office’s faulty Fujitsu-supplied accounting software.
Amazingly, the series actually lost the broadcaster somewhere in the region of £1m, despite pulling in an average audience of nearly 10 million viewers.
Under The Counter found it hard to swallow that the show could be a financial flop.
He therefore suggested that ITV look again at the production’s ledger and double check its bean-counting software wasn’t sourced from Fujitsu.
The Auld Boy, unsurprisingly, was talking mince. Apparently, broadcasters rely on overseas sales to help programmes turn a profit, and the show wasn’t appealing enough to foreign viewers, as ITV high heid yin Kevin Lygo explained: “If you’re in Lithuania, four hours on the British Post Office? Not really, thank you very much.”
UTC could see Lygo’s point. Back in the old days before counter services in c-stores were a thing, UTC once nipped out at lunchtime to renew his passport and ended up spending four hours in a British Post Office.
