Yes. With the BBC I guess it's a situation of "How can we entertain the people with some quality programming?". With commerical TV it'd be "What can we do to get people to keep watching?, and while we're at it lets string it out for half the year to increase revenue"
There's also the difference in culture I guess. Fawlty towers is a classic but I still saw a John Larroquette vehicle once that was a copy. Not that I remember the original having an episode where two people got their piercings stuck together
. The Bean counters seemingly want to jump on a bandwagon and grab some of the revenue while missing the reason something might have been popular. It also happens a lot with Hollywood copying foreign films. Terry Pretchett is dissilusioned with Hollywood because they wanted to make Reaper Man but thought they should lose the whole Death thing because it was so morbid, and there are plans to make a live version of Akira but you know with Leonardo Di Caprio, and in New Manhattan instead of New Tokyo.
Ever heard of, or seen, the movie Enemy Mine? The original book has nothing to do with a mine, it's a posessive. Some exec didn't get it though and stuck one in so the audience wouldn't be confused