The Gruen Transfer Series 3: oddly absent from the UK

I’ve never quite understood why (as far as I know) the hit Australian show The Gruen Transfer has never made it to UK TV, either a broadcast of the original Australian episodes or as a remake using the original format.

It’s both great fun and also educational – just the sort of things the BBC and Channel 4 in particular often say they are looking for, and its numerous awards means it surely has caught people’s eyes around the world by now.

Think of it like Have I Got News For You, but about the advertising industry. There’s a funny chair (Wil Anderson), two regulars on each team whose different personalities often spark off each other (Russel Howcroft and Todd Sampson) and two rotating guests. There are an awful lot of jokes about the advertising industry and also plenty of brief but insightful explanations of why advertisers do what they do.

If you want to get a load of laughs whilst also understanding the adverts you see all the time a little better, this is the show for you.

Series 3 on DVD can be a little tricky to track down to buy in the UK, but the Google shopping search results usually through up a few viable options and (at time of writing) some whole episodes are available on YouTube.