This week sees the start of another ITV produced, celebrity stuffed, public voting extravaganza, an the guise of "Britains Favourite View" (I hope you like my fave to the left)
An awful lot has been said about this type of programme, most of which concerning them being scrapping of the barrel lowest common denominator trash - and I am pretty much the first to agree these comments.
But, are these what the public want? They seem to watch them - in their millions, and help pay for it by voting for their favourite celebrity or would be celeb. More importantly the advertisers are happy to pay for these programmes to be made. As cross as I get at the media for flinging out this rubbish, I guess it should really be aimed, yes, at the dumb ass public.
Does the public get what the public want? Or as The jam pointed out all those years ago, the public want what the public gets?
Either way this latest small screen classic seems to plumb the depths. Would be celebrities telling us about their favourite views. And then we get to vote on them.
Why? Do we really need to be directly engaged in a programme to watch it? Can't we just watch a programme, agree and disagree between ourselves, perhaps even off the back of it decide to go and see some of the views for ourselves? No, we are implored to vote, and as mentioned above millions do.
That said this isn't the worst of this ilk of programming. That dubious prize must go to "Extinct", last years ITV produced voting celeb fest which asked us to vote which animal to save.
I wish I could make this up. Do these programme commissioners know how difficult it is for me to think up witty and humorous pretend programmes to entertain my public when I'm in competition with real programmes like this?
Don't worry, of course I'll give it a go.
1. "Celebrity Coma Watch" a selection of people up and down the country are in a coma at any given time. They are entered onto this programme, and a celebrity, say Carol Vordaman or Des Lynham, attempt to wake them up. The public vote, and I've yet to decide if the celebrity is kicked out or the life support switched off.
2. "Lets Hunt and Kill Bill Ray Cyrus". This one is in honour of the great Bill Hicks. Check out Rants in E Minor for the full routine. We could update it with Ant and Dec, or Paris Hilton, or Jordan.
3. "I'm a Celebrity, Get me a Doctor". A selection of C-list celebs get injected with various poisons. The public votes as to who gets the antidote.
4. "Extinct" Celebrities put forward the case for animals on the verge of extinction, and the public votes as to which animal is saved. Oh that's been done. How about the public vote as to which animal should be made extinct? or the least number of votes results in a big game hunter going after the last few Pandas, or Tigers or whatever.
In fact, lets fill the programme with things like Sabre tooth tigers, Woolly Mammoths and Dodos. Let the public vote for them, they wouldn't even realise - and what was that about a fool and their money being soon parted ?
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