Cancellation
In June 1989, Thames Television's Head of Light Entertainment since March 1988, John Howard Davies, invited Hill in for a meeting. Having just returned from a triumphant Cannes TV festival Hill assumed that they were to discuss details of a new series. Instead, John Howard Davies sacked Hill. In an episode about Hill transmitted as part of the documentary series, Living Famously, John Howard Davies, the former head of entertainment at Thames Television who had cancelled the show, stated there were three reasons why he did so: "...the audiences were going down, the programme was costing a vast amount of money, and he (Hill) was looking a little tired.".
At its peak in 1977, 21.10 million viewers watched Hill's show. In 1989, the last Thames episode attracted 9.58 million viewers.
Read more about this topic: The Benny Hill Show