Nicholas Lyndhurst says 'Only Fools and Horses' wouldn't get made today.
The 52-year-old actor is most famous for his role as hapless Rodney Trotter in the BBC sitcom - one of the most popular shows in UK history, running from 1981 to 1991, as well as several Christmas specials - but he doesn't think a slow-burning cult show would be chosen by TV commissioners today.
He explained: "'Only Fools...' would never be made today, nor 'Dad's Army'.
"TV companies turn down good scripts because they're not prepared to let them develop.
"A talent show will pick up seven million viewers, and they can't afford to nurture something that initially will only have a million."
Nicholas, 52, also slammed talent shows for being "cruel", comparing them to watching people in a lunatic asylum.
He explained: "'Britain's Got Talent'? Hundreds of years ago we were selling tickets to [lunatic asylum] Bedlam. It's become like that.
"It's cruel to watch these deluded people - the judges as well, sometimes.
"They don't need to be talented, and that's a shame because you don't want to watch people who can't do it."
Nicholas admits he's turned down several offers to appear on talent shows and fears his son Archie, 13, who has inherited his "acting gene", will end up working on such programmes because there will be nothing else around in the TV industry.
He added to the Radio Times magazine: "I wonder, though, what sort of industry he'll enter.
"I can hardly say, 'Darling, do all this training and the best thing will be Celebrity Dog Watch'.
"Take away the talent shows, celebrity cook shows, skating, dog training, dancing, putting people on an island - what's left?
"I've been asked to go on all of them."
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