The Office is a BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award winning and Emmy-nominated British television comedy that first aired in the UK on BBC Two on 9 July 2001. Created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough, Berkshire branch of the fictitious Wernham Hogg Paper Company. Although fictional and scripted, the programme takes the form of a documentary (a fictional documentary, i.e. a mockumentary), with the presence of the camera often acknowledged. Two six-episode series were made, along with a pair of 45-minute Christmas specials. When it was first shown on BBC 2 it was nearly axed due to low ratings, but has since become one of the most successful British comedy exports of all time. As well as being shown internationally on BBC Worldwide channels such as BBC Prime, BBC America and BBC Canada, the series has been sold to broadcasters in over 80 countries, including ABC in Australia, TVNZ in New Zealand and the pan-Asian satellite channel STAR World, based in Hong Kong. The show shares themes with a later social satire created by Gervais and Merchant, Extras, namely social clumsiness, the trivialities of human behaviour, self-importance and conceit, frustration and desperation and fame . In May 2004 a French version called Le Bureau was made. A German version called Stromberg was made in October 2004. In November 2004 a Brazilian show on the Globo channel, Os Aspones, was also heavily modelled on the series' format. Four years after the show's critical success an American version was launched on NBC on 24 March 2005. A fifth adaptation, the French-Canadian\Quebec's La Job, had its TV debut in January 2007.