Brian Nicholls

Last updated 13:45, Wednesday, 01 October 2008

Strictly Come Dancing is back on our screens to join The X Factor to dominate and ruin Saturday night television.

What a combination. One is a talent show which focuses on people who are desperate to become celebrities (‘Please, please Louis I really, really want this ...’) while the other revolves around those who have become famous by proving that, in most cases, you don’t actually need talent to succeed in the modern celebrity culture anyway.

I hate these unimaginative shows which appear at the same time every year now to dominate television and lure people into ringing up every week to help to make other people rich despite the fact that there is no evidence that their votes make any difference at all. The bubbly presenters say they do but have you noticed they never ever say how many votes each individual actually had?

You may well ask, why do you watch them then? Because I have no flaming choice that’s why. There is a massive conspiracy to keep sticking these inane programmes right in my face whenever I switch the TV on.

The BBC is the very devil for doing it. So full of their own brilliance are they in finding a brain numbing format which they can use over and over again that they continually create opportunities to talk about it, swoon over it, discuss it, repeat it and interview contestants and judges 14 times every day.

There is no escape, no hiding place. It has reached the point where even that once sacred institution the Six O’Clock News is used to advertise and publicise such trash. BBC Breakfast is nothing more than one long trailer for such shows as is The One Show in the evening. But the clever move by the BBC when they pick their two left footed contestants is to include an ITV, usually GMTV, presenter. Brilliant! ITV willingly join the conspiracy and hey presto prancing celebs dominate all their numerous air-headed talk programmes too. Who says the licence fee is worth every penny?