Bring on the Dancing Horses

This might not mean anything to non-British readers but apparently a dog won a talent show this week.

It picked up its prize on a Simon Cowell TV show. I’ve never seen any of his product, but I did see a picture of this cute dog (and its cute owner) in my newspaper. They are now officially ‘celebrities’.

They will now be photographed falling out of nightclubs at three in the morning, have their love lives dissected and reported in graphic detail in the press and no doubt will be odds-on favourites to have the Christmas number one single. And in a year’s time they’ll be in rehab to break their prescription Bonio addiction and that will be the last that we’ll hear of them.

I’m not a fan of competition TV. The entire point of these shows is negativity: each week the crowd roars its approval as someone is told that they’re not good enough (“you’re fired” as they say on another show I’ve never seen). The hard-nosed business of ‘show’ is by its very nature a cruel one, that’s true, but these cheap programs add nothing to the world’s cultural landscape. There’s no aim to produce artists with long shelf-lives. Most of the British and American Factor/Got Talent performers signed by Cowell to his record label have been released within two years.

I understand the argument that these shows are really no different from the ‘New Faces’ or ‘Opportunity Knocks’ of my youth, but I can’t really remember Middle of the Road, Fivepenny Piece or Millican and Nesbitt dominating the charts and newspapers of the day in the same way as today’s contestants do. And these were only once-a-week shows. Cowell’s televisual behemoths and their like (Big Brother, Get me out of the Jungle etc.) clog up weeks of prime-time schedules like a major sporting world championship but three times a year.

And while ever these shows are taking up hours of TV there’s less airtime and budget available for quality drama. Which means that there are fewer openings for scriptwriters and actors than there were in the pre-reality TV days. It makes sound financial sense I guess. You can’t really do an arena tour of ‘Lark Rise to Candleford’.

But I’m guessing by the popularity of elimination shows that I must be in a very small minority. The reason that they’re shown so often is that they’re popular. It’s what the masses want, guv.

I’ll get my coat. There’s probably an unsold script in the pocket.

© Shaun Finnie 2012