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At the risk of sounding like Mary Whitehouse, I wish TV networks – especially the BBC – would commission more dramas and sitcoms that are suitable for all the family. I realise that such programmes have to reach out to a mass audience, but sometimes I feel the only time I can switch on the telly without fear of being offended is by tuning into yet another rerun of Dad’s Army or Yes Minister!

Why for instance did Tom Hiddleston’s character Jonathan Pine in the BBC’s otherwise excellent drama The Night Manager have to make love to Jed against a wall with his bottom on show?

Everyone wants to be able to sit down and watch a drama or sitcom with their mother or children and not be embarrassed by its graphic nature, but it’s getting increasingly difficult.

Virtually all of us have watched brilliant sitcoms of yesteryear like Fawlty Towers, Porridge and Only Fools And Horses. These are classics because the writing is clever, the characters memorable, the shows themselves so funny – and they can be enjoyed by all ages. They have a fundamental decency and are largely sex-free. And for all those reasons, they’ll surely last forever.

I write escapist detective stories about characters like Hamish Macbeth – a policeman in the Highlands – and Agatha Raisin, a PR whizz who turns amateur sleuth when there’s a spate of murders in her sleepy Cotswolds village. Both have been successfully adapted for television. There were three series of Hamish Macbeth (starring Robert Carlyle) on BBC1 in the 1990s; and the first series of Agatha Raisin (starring Ashley Jensen) recently aired on Sky 1. I think the reason why my novels and their TV spinoffs have proved popular is because they follow the Dad’s Army blueprint: they’re entertaining and amusing without being explicit.

The trouble is that directors copy each other and one raunchy sex scene leads to more and more. It’s a slippery slope. Sadly, most TV executives don’t seem interested in commissioning the kind of light entertainment shows that I and many others want to unwind to, even if such shows have the potential to become the Fawlty Towers or Only Fools of tomorrow.

Still, the continuing success of programmes like Endeavour (ITV’s Inspector Morse prequel) and my own Agatha Raisin shows that there’s still a big audience for dramas and sitcoms which are family viewing. So why on earth don’t the TV networks make more of them? Agatha Raisin Series One will be released on DVD on 1 August. For more information about MC Beaton visit mcbeaton.com/uk/author.