(Skinner starred in his own failed sitcom, Shane in 2004). The first episode broke BBC Four's audience record for a comedy series, with 383,000 viewers. Despite dropping to 199,000 by the third episode, it still won a multi-channel slot. "Rubbish"'s BBC Two repeat received 2.1 million viewers, with 122,000 seeing "Allergic" afterwards on BBC Four. The final episode of the first series, "Fatty", received 2.3 million for its BBC Two repeat. The first series was nominated for a British Comedy Award in 2007, with Dee also nominated for best comedy actor. Series information Broadcast history The first series aired on BBC Four between 4 October and 8 November 2006 in the 10:30 p.m. timeslot. The ratings success of the first episodes led to the series having a repeat run on BBC Two, starting on 26 October. A second series of eight episodes was commissioned by the controller of BBC Two following the conclusion of the first series. The third series began on 13 November 2008. The fourth series premiered on BBC 2 on 31 May 2011. Lead Balloon was the first comedy series to be broadcast on the BBC's high-definition service, BBC HD, with another repeat run beginning on 21 December 2006. Episodes were also made available as streaming downloads on bbc.co.uk during the first series run. Jack Dee announced during an interview on Alan Carr: Chatty Man that a fourth series was in the works. Shooting finished in Autumn 2010 and the series began its broadcast run on 31 May 2011 in the UK on BBC2 at 10 p.m. In Australia, series one and two were first aired back-to-back on ABC1 each Tuesday at 8pm from 3 February 2009 until 7 April when the network shifted the remaining episodes to the later 9:30 p.m. slot until 5 May 2009. Both seasons have since been repeated on the lower-rated ABC2 channel and uploaded to the ABC iView catch-up service. Series three is yet to air in Australia. In Sweden, series two was aired on SVT1 from the ninth of July 2012: Series 3 and 4 were aired in the Autumn of the same year. DVD releases The first series was released on DVD on 12 November 2007 and the second on 24 November 2008. The third and fourth series were released on 6 June 2011 and 11 July 2011 respectively. All 4 series were also released as a DVD boxset