Happy new 2008, everyone. On with the awards.
Best Telly Programme About Telly 2007
The Nominations
Harry Hill's TV Burp (ITV1)
As pointed out on this very blog, during this year's series of TV Burp, it was (at the time) Britain's most watched comedy show. This was probably the first time ITV have been able to boast such a thing since Mr Bean, so it was all the more odd that they didn't even bother scheduling any commercials in the middle of each show, preferring to save the valuable 'number of minutes advertising per hour' quota for Dancing On Ice.
On a whim, we've popped to the ever reliable Barb website, and looked up the viewing figures for four other "Britain's Most Popular Comedy Shows", and taken an average reading for each. We've used the most recent series of each, so the respective shows ought to be at their peak of popularity. Here's the first Official BrokenTV Graph of 2008:
And yes Ricky, we're pretty fucking sure they're the 'right' 5.52 million viewers. So, in summary, TV Burp: popular and good.
Children's TV on Trial (BBC Four)
A pleasingly detailed look at sprog-friendly visual broadcasting over the last 5.7 decades. Each programme looked at a different decade, including proper interviews with people who know what they're talking about, and a refreshing lack of Russell Peters types humming theme tunes and snorting "The Chuckle Hounds! What was all that about, eh?"
Best of all, the series concluded with a group of 2007-issue kids dropping English on the children's television of the past. Possibly to the disdain of those who'd like to claim we're all on the road to hell in a Polish-made handbasket, they generally liked it. Showing that kids nowadays can still appreciate the genius of Johnny Ball's Think Again is something that makes us feel the world actually isn't irrevocably knackered after all.
The Winner:
Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe
Able to switch from ranting furiously (and entertainingly) about the BBC's credit squeezing to a considered critique over the media's handling of the Madeline McCann case in the blink of an eye (except those pieces were about three episodes apart, but bear with us), one-time Your Sinclair's Letters Page Star Letter Winner Charlie Brooker crammed in a couple of series of his Screen Wipe during 2007. Granted, it's a bit of a shame this year's Christmas special didn't get the time to explore the year's TV in any great detail, but hey. It's just nice to see something this inventive, invective and another word meaning "enjoyable" ending in '-tive' on our screens. And yes, we were really chuffed when the Guardian Guide likened us to him, although that's not why he wins this (we just were just lucky that the Guardian Guide found our blog during the short period we were any good, clearly).
It's almost worth having a load of rubbish on our TV screens, if it means we get to see Charlie and his Zeppotron pixies tearing it all apart. (Note to Commissioning Editors of BBC Three: We said "almost", so it doesn't make another series of Tittybangbang or Fuck Off I'm Ginger justifiable.)
Worst Telly Programme About Telly 2007
The Winner:
Anything with Mark Lawson in it, obviously.
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