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Ideas and Television

30 August

Television

It’s easy to slag off television. You know the people that love to do it, the kind of people with an unreasonably large book about some tortured 60’s musician resting on the coffee table. The bookmark proudly sticking out two-thirds of the way in. They profess with a smug smile that they never watch television as they are to busy and anyway "it’s all rubbish these days".

Usually these people have a 50 inch widescreen surround-sound mother-funker with a stack of videos reaching up to the ceiling.

They will also drone on about how there are too many reality shows on. They will point out what dross Big Brother before going on to talk about Saskia’s breasts. You interrupt, deciding to annoy them by saying that you’ve read the book about the 60’s musician and make up an incident you think could have possibly occurred in such a book, too which they’ll nod intently saying that’s their favourite bit.

These people will be foaming all over their goatees when they hear the little treat ITV have got in store. A brand new reality show with the best name ever given to anything ever: "Celebrity Shark Bait".

Just how such a show was thought up I have no idea. I like to imagine three ITV execs sitting around a table, each writing a random word on piece of paper and then placing the pieces face down before revealing them in a random order. One of them always writes "Celebrity". He’s in charge. Then when they get the name they fit the show around it. Sharks swimming quickly at Soapstars in underwater metal cages.

So a permanent formula or new TV shows… Celebrity . With this, any number of new and exciting possibilities are available. "Celebrity Scone Fiddling" and "Celebrity Wednesday Crying" spring immediately to mind.

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