Looks like ITV are borrowing an idea from BBC, asking for people to apply for Simon Cowell's (there's a surprise) 'Grease is the Word' connected to the West End.
So we have this, Dancing on Ice, X Factor series 3, no doubt more IACGMOOH, Soapstar Superstar and that other series with Simon Cowell.
2007 another year of reality tv on ITV1 then!
We're on series 4 of X Factor next year, and the other show is Britain's Got Talent. And, to be fair to ITV, at least they're giving us a mix of reality shows, instead of 13/14 weeks of Big Brother on Channel 4.
True, at least they do give more variety - 14 weeks of Big Brother not to mention a month of Celeb Big Brother - talk about milking something to death. Thank god ITV have seen sense and axed Love Island.
Yes Andrew, it is a long time until the next IACGMOOH and X Factor, but I was looking ahead to the whole of 2007!
So we have this, Dancing on Ice, X Factor series 3, no doubt more IACGMOOH, Soapstar Superstar and that other series with Simon Cowell.
2007 another year of reality tv on ITV1 then!
We're on series 4 of X Factor next year, and the other show is Britain's Got Talent. And, to be fair to ITV, at least they're giving us a mix of reality shows, instead of 13/14 weeks of Big Brother on Channel 4.
The difference with ITV though (and the BBC to a lesser extent) is they often try and pass the same show off as something new! C4 covered the musical genre years ago with a show that focused on talent rather than popularity!
We did mention this in a thread about the BBC commissioning "Any Dream will Do" - the BBC are producing the US version of the Grease comp "Your the One that I want", but this didn't cover the UK rights, resulting in Simon Cowell grabbing them to make a copy cat format - though of course he says he thought of it years ago!
He also says Grease is the only musical he'd do it with - but I bet that's forgotten when ITV want a second series with a different show!
I guess with American Idol running through till May we'll begin the year with Dancing on Ice on ITV1, probably followed by Grease in April/May, with Britain's Got Talent following around June/July before The X Factor returns in the Autumn.
These talent contests are undoubtably giving a short term boost to Saturday nights - but absolutely failing to bring any new TV talent to the screens.
Format shows can pretty much be hosted by anyone, but take away the format and the presenters of them are lost.
Ant and Dec are probably the only exception to that at the moment, but they are about the only people who host a Saturday night show which sets out to purely entertain - rather than do something that should be done in a smokey back room in the West End!
The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing may have helped resurrect Saturday nights - but I fear the copycat formats which have arisen from them mean in the long term the future of Saturday night TV is looking more bleak than ever!
