Dashed Hopes

Only a temporary reprieve

How my spirits soared when I saw the headline "Celebrity Big Brother Axed" on the SkyNews website. Sadly the title soon changed to "Celebrity Big Brother 2008 Axed" and it transpired that the nightmare is scheduled to return after a year's hiatus; I suppose it would only have been a single drop gone from the ocean of mindless reality TV programming, but I guess every little helps.

Sadly I'm sure the public's addiction to such mind-numbing crap will continue unabated for some time to come, as will the broadcaster's willingness to fill the gaps in the schedules that the ever increasing bandwidth available to them creates. Every year brings it's own fresh crop of 'Celebrity X, Y and Z' and each year X, Y and Z become either more bizarre or more anodyne.

What I really struggle to think of is any case of a broadcaster whose increasing range of channels has brought with it any real increase in total quality output, other than those that have opted basically to have a re-runs channel. I've even had to go and check that ITV4 is actually available on Freeview because of upcoming Rugby World Cup coverage, so disinterested have I become in its ilk.