Alan Partridge was created for the 1991 BBC Radio 4 comedy programme "On The Hour", a spoof of British current affairs broadcasting, as the show's hapless sports presenter. He is portrayed by Steve Coogan, who had performed a similar character for a BBC college radio station at university. Producer Armando Iannucci asked Coogan to do a voice for a generic sports reporter, with elements of Elton Welsby, Jim Rosenthal and John Motson. According to Iannucci, "Someone said, 'He's an Alan!' and someone else said, 'He's a Partridge!' Within minutes we knew where he lived, we'd worked out his back story, what his aspirations were." Iannucci, Patrick Marber, Richard Herring and Stewart Lee wrote much of Partridge's first material; Herring credits the creation to Coogan and Iannucci.