The Boundaries of Laughter was this year's theme of the Common Focus Day which took place on Wednesday in the context of the Eurovision TV Summit in Lucerne. The conference was the most important meeting of the Summit, which each year discusses new, creative and diverse themes among Europe's most distinguished personalities in the audiovisual business.  

News, sport and music travel well across European television screens, and so does a good documentary or a piece of well-crafted drama. But can humour travel? Can one talk about a shared European sense of humour? The meeting discussed how to encourage and develop funny TV programmes that can travel Europe.  Many extracts from film, TV fiction and documentaries were presented. The conference was moderated by Eurovision TV Director Bjørn Erichsen.

In particular, the following distinguished personalities discussed if and how humour can travel across television, internet and film:

Paul Jackson, CEO Eyeworks UK: Commissioning Comedy in Europe: Successes, flops and the fine line in between. 

Mr Jackson, previously ITV Director of Entertainment and Comedy, said that comedy, especially stand-up comedy, is the hardest thing to get right as it is very much linked to national cultures. He commissioned the UK comedy format 'The Office' which was a great success and travelled internationally.

Mr Jackson called upon public service broadcasters to encourage creativity and develop comedy formats that can travel across Europe.

Andrea Olcese, Founder and Manager of Einstein Multimedia Group

Mr Olcese presented one of his best successes: Lovebugs. An internationally acclaimed comedy format, created in Canada and which travelled across 23 countries. Olcese launched the Italian version of Lovebugs, a huge success in his country.

Patrick Walker, Director of EMEA Partnerships for YouTube

In the old days there were only a few comedy sources/gatekeepers. Internet - especially YouTube - has radically modified this as new comedy formats and concepts are now continuously tested online. 

Mr Walker spoke about how humour travels on YouTube. He showed 8 funny clips and asked delegates to vote for their favourite one using their mobile phones. Click here to see some examples of how humour travels on YouTube:

• Introducing the book (repost) Helpdesk 
  
• The Jogger – Japp commercial
  
• We Are Sinking (German Coast Guard) (Berlitz Ad) 
  
• Anti-boredom Campaign
  
• Funniest Commercial Ever - 5 million views - this is a classic
  
• The interpreter
  
• Blonde Secretary
  
• Numa Numa
  

Dan Mazer is an Academy-nominated screenwriter, TV/film producer, and comedian, most famed as the long-time writing and production partner of Sacha Baron Cohen and has worked with him on such characters as Ali G and Borat. 

In his presentation Mr Mazer talked about how the very existence of boundaries is the source for so much humour and how laughter is an essential tool in breaking down barriers. He illustrated this both with some clips from his work- 'Borat' uses boundaries and the differences between cultures to create comedy - and some anecdotes too. 

For more information on the Common Focus Day and the speaker's biographies, please click here. 

The Common Focus Day ended with a live performance of the successful West End musical:  Eurobeat, a hilarious parody of the Eurovision Song Contest (see photo below). The results of the YouTube survey on the funniest video were also announced to delegates.