The summer fixture
I don't like to think of myself as the great defender of reality TV, but I do think it's got a bit of an undeserved bad press over the past few years. The return of Big Brother, the daddy of them all, has got me thinking. Those with the loudest opinions about RTV are often the ones who have never really sat down and watched it properly. The tedious discourse is usually one of 'dumbing-down', though I think the world of televisual entertainment would be far less interesting if it were only populated by serious discussion programmes fronted by Dame Joan Bakewell. There is, I think, the latent assumption that RTV can't be any good because it involves ordinary people.
That is not to say, of course, that RTV is without fault; far from it. The Simon Cowell franchise shows are becoming parodies of themselves. 'Pop Idol', the format that Mr Cowell stymied because he didn't hold the format rights - and hence couldn't make millions from it - was simply the latest in a long line of talent show formats that had been popular since the dawn of ITV in 1955. Today's X-Factor, however, is a vulgar parody of a talent show. Contestants are encouraged to talk about their difficulties in life, and it is these 'sob-stories' which play a not insignificant role in a contestant's chance of success. It is an indication of the unrepresentative nature of those who work in TV that working as a manager of a Tesco store should be seen as a great hardship from which 'Britain's Got Talent' could be the route to 'save the contestant's life'.
Big Brother, however, continues to be unfairly maligned. The intricacies of human behaviour, the creation and destruction of allegiances, the blossoming of a troubled individual are all laid before us during a typical week of highlights from the Big Brother house. The baying crowds on eviction night and the hysterical interviews and tabloid deals are the creation of Channel 4's media machine. I'll be watching BB9 right until the end. Why don't you give it a try?