It was better then

I blame the recent appetite for 'Reality TV' and 'Makeover TV'. Producers these days just aren't imaginative enough, they find a formula, stick with it and do it to death.

How many more Changing Rooms, Real Rooms, Better Homes, DIY Disasters type clones can we take. Lifestyle TV which was usually consigned to daytime suddenly became primetime, subsequently the slots for original dramas, comedy, current affairs reduced.

Cookery is another overdone formula, Food & Drink, Ready Steady Cook, The Naked Chef, Delia, Can't Cook Won't Cook, Ken Hom, blah blah blah. The list is endless.

Actually I don't blame ITV for the decline in original TV, they just use tried and tested formulas, and don't really dare take risks in case of poor viewing figures. No, I blame the BBC. The BBC have the remit to come up with new formulas, new comedies, original dramas (not endless hospital dramas and detectives) but don't choose to do so. The BBC should be risk takers, they should be pushing the boundaries of broadcasting but I feel that they are failing in this task. They don't have to worry about revenue, that is guaranteed, I say we should be getting more value for money from the BBC.

To be fair, when the first Cookery gameshow, House Makeover show, Garden invasion show or even World's Blankiest Blank show was made, it WAS new and groundbreaking. How many people in this forum or whatever its equivilent would've been were praising the BBC for bringing us Sylvania Waters, a revolutionery new format of TV which shows us just how intersting it is to be a 'fly-on-the-wall' in a real life situation.

And this still happens, but I do agree with you that after it happens, there's a lot of bandwagon-jumping. Take for example,the current trend, ''Walking with Dinosaurs', 'The Ballad of Big Al', 'Walking with Beasts' 'Extinct' - and I'm sure there are others to come. WWD was brilliant when the BBC pioneered it only about a year or so ago - now it's 'Oh look, another CGI animal show'.

It happened with Thunderbirds clones.
It happened with Dr Who clones
It happened with Brookside clones
Blue peter spawned Tiswas

This isn't a new thing.

My overall point? Unclear - but it's late - goodnight all.

How many sitcoms do ITV have nowadays, to my memory there's just one in Barbara, are they any more?

ITV1's 'The Sketch Show' has some rather good sketches. That imaginary friends one has to be the funniest moment on TV this millennium.

But TV is definitely getting worse, and any suggestions to take it few years back and you're brushed off as 'old-fashioned' and 'set in your ways'.

Everything must be corporate branded to the extreme so the plebs don't get confused and forget what channel they're watching, and regionalism is going out the window so fast now it's hard to believe. ITV1 North-East, ITV1 London in a few years? I woulndn't be surprised.

Regarding the programmes themselves, the lower ratings slump the more DIY, cookery, reality TV, gameshows etc. we get because they are a quick fix. Ask people what they want to see, instead of having a bunch of out of touch schedulers putting on what they think people will watch.