[tellyblues]

Peaky Blinders was at least successful enough for the BBC and had a sizeable audience to start with that made people think it was a hit. It also got hyped partly because of initially being on BBC2 and was given more time to build an audience, just like Line of Duty, Bake Off, Race Across The World etc, but in truth it wasn't much different or for another audience altogether compared to the rest of the BBC output whereas most C4 comedy and drama tends to be.

Stick something out of the ordinary on BBC1 and it would underperform, as has been seen with Champion, Ralph and Katie, and more recently, Lost Boys and Fairies, but the BBC are likely to be commended for making these shows and putting them on the main channel while C4 commissioning them would be seen as a done thing. Understandable given C4's more highly publicised and analysed remit but there isn't going to be the same clamour for journos to push C4 shows when they're preaching to the converted and there's no incentive for them to be associated with flop shows, which ultimately happens because the crossover for Countdown and Big Boys is tiny.