THE British producers of “Coupling” yesterday blamed its rapid cancellation on NBC’s over-hype.

“We can’t complain about how much publicity we got – but I’m not sure it was the right publicity to have,” Susan Vertue told The Post yesterday from London.

“I don’t think you can say it’s a show ‘Everyone is talking about’ it before anyone has seen it,” she said, paraphrasing NBC’s campaign for the sexy show.

“By the time [‘Coupling’] came out everyone was a bit fed up with it,” she said. “I just don’t think you can tell people what to watch.”

NBC canned “Coupling” after only four episodes – news the British producers say they learned from the Internet.

The sitcom, adapted from a British hit about six friends, was widely considered an eventual replacement for “Friends” – but averaged only 12.2 million viewers sandwiched between “Will & Grace” and “ER” on Thursday.

“Why would you say it’s ‘The Next ‘Friends’ ‘ when everyone already loves ‘Friends?’,” Vertue said.

“It was very hard to achieve what we were trying to achieve.”

NBC officials had no comment yesterday.