Nothing But the Truth, then

According to Sky's PR monolith, "Hosted by Jerry Springer, contestants are hooked up to a lie-detector and asked a tailored set of increasingly personal and risqué questions about their life in order to win a jackpot of £50,000. The situation is made more embarrassing by their closest friends, family and partners being in the audience to witness their confessions." And, we have to say, it was pretty entertaining. But, we do have a number of petty gripes. Because we're as hard to please as a scouse postie.

Gripe one. We're willing to be corrected on this, but the impression we've got of this is that all the lie detecting is actually done during the backstage (off screen, and away from the family and friends who'd come along) Q&A session with researchers. All that is actually happening on-stage is that a selection of questions from the earlier session are read out (this part in front of the cameras, audience, Jerry, friends and family) and any answers given have to be the same as previously. The response to their replies is then announced, but all the lie-detecting was done previously.

This is slightly skirted over in Jerry's introduction, to convey an impression of everything happening on stage, in much the same way as Chris Tarrant used to pretend ...Millionaire was broadcast live by slotting some topical remarks to that day's news (which were actually recorded a day after the remainder of the show). Just another example of TEH HORRID TV LIE FACTORY? Not really, we can't help but feel the show would be enhanced by a team of boffins in the corner of the studio hunched around a polygraph machine.

Gripe two. Aside from the one about the taxi driver having a 'bit on the side', the questions asked were mostly rather tame. Asking a taxi driver if he'd ever criticised the government while driving his cab (HE DID!), or if he ever uses pornographic material (HE DOES!) isn't exactly going to get any grannies dropping their knitting these days. Now that they've used one of their best hands in the first episode -

"Have you ever thought about having a homosexual experience? [pause] Don't answer now, we'll be back after this break!"

[five minutes later]

"No, I haven't."

"THAT IS THE... TRUTH"

- they'd better be ramping up the awkwardness dramatically over the next week. And it's a bit of a shame they couldn't have used something more challenging if they were going to have lots of obvious "black cab driver" questions, such as "have you ever made a comment to a passenger that could be considered racist?".

Gripe three. It's all very slow. It's all very well to be full of suspense in these post-WWTBAM times, but over one hour and two contestants, we've yet to see anyone actually tell an untruth. Understandably, the prizes on offer have head to be kept low, just so there's a chance someone will risk a lie, but dragging out someone's chance of getting up to a mere thousand pounds to almost fifteen minutes is an almost glacial pace in today's modern short-attention-span society. Upping the prizes wouldn't really help - hell, we'd happily claim we fantasise about molesting seafood on national television if there was a million quid in it - so just get the trivial questions over and done with. (And we don't really have a piscine fetish. Not since the time we caught gonorrhea from that tench, anyway.)

Of course, we'll still be watching it for the next few days. Expect further reports, because we've made a vow to ourselves to update more often.

It'll never last.

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New MTV Channel Announced. A Nation Rejoices* (* Fails To Care)

From DigitalSpy:

MTV is to launch a new entertainment channel next month known as MTV R: 'Rated and Recommended'.

The broadcaster said that MTV R, which launches on November 8, will offer viewers "an opportunity to enjoy the iconic shows that made MTV famous".

Content on MTV R will include the first and second series of Newlyweds, Cribs, Laguna Beach and Pimp My Ride.

After dark the channel will offer up a selection of stunt-based shows, in the shape of Jackass, Wildboyz and Viva La Bam.

Now, consider us to be out-of-touch curmudgeons with unfashionable hair if you like, but isn't that pretty fupping well much what MTV is anyway? And that this whole affair is just an excuse to cram an MTV channel into the 'entertainment' section of everyone's EPGs in order to jump-start the unremarkable audience figures currently enjoyed by the rest of the MTV 'family'?

Mind you, at least it might distract them from such glaring anomalies as playing the (excellent) 'Homecoming' by The Teenagers in full at 1.55am in MTV2's ace "120 Minutes" strand, then following it up by removing bad words such as "pain", "bleed" or "gun" from their standard output of Bad NME-Friendly Rock five minutes later during "MTV2: Commercial Free".

(Two updates in one day! We're practically turning into Engadget!)

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Dave: Stupid name, decent viewing figures. But anyway: numbers.

According to MeejaGuardian, UKTV's brave move to launch a Freeview channel with something worth watching on it (but with a really, really stupid name that a bunch of overpaid marketing yahoos are still probably quaffing celebratory cocaine over even as we type) seems to have paid off, with the channel ahead of BBC Three, Living and Sky One in the multichannel viewing share league table. While we're not sure cramming a channel full of Top Gear repeats is a viable long-term plan, it seems to be preferable to watching Price-drop TV, E4+1 or the smileTV "Programming starts at 3am" screen. And quite right, too.

Now, given the launch of a channel on Freeview that broadcasts lots of already popular programmes - as opposed to another shopping or time-shifted channel - was always likely to prove popular on a television platform preferred by 30.4% of the population, why aren't there more entertainment channels on there? Over on Sky, Paramount are really struggling for viewers at the moment, with their most-watched show (Scrubs, with 112,000 viewers for w/e 14th Oct) being out-watched by classic programmes such as History Channel's Ice Road Truckers (159,000 viewers), or ITV3's repeat of An Audience With Des O'Connor (223,000 viewers). If they'd put the channel onto Freeview, possibly by annexing the Bid-Up TV studios - well, it's worth a try - they'd be onto an advertising revenue winner, we're sure.

The same applies to Bravo, Living and Sci-Fi. For all their endless promotion and "flagship" programmes (or more accurately "help! We've spunked all our annual budget on one NBC adult drama that got got canned after eight episodes" programmes), they're hardly eating into the viewing shares of the 'proper' channels. Unless you're counting ITV1, but we're still convinced Michael Grade is trying some sort of The Producers-type tax dodge with that. We fully expect to see 'Springtime For Bin Laden' as part of their Christmas Day schedule.

This brings us onto another almost relevant point. There were a lot of channels that launched around the same time as Sky Digital that quite clearly cost a bit of money to keep running, and with the relatively tiny potential audience of the time, they would clearly be fighting an uphill struggle. Channels such as TaraTV (which showcased the best of Irish TV - The Late Late Show, Don't Feed The Gondolas, and live sets from the like of Tommy Tiernan) barely troubled the Barb number monkeys. This set of ratings figures from March 2001 reveal that exactly half of their fifty most-watched programmes attained a total of "0.00m" viewers (or, given that the totals are rounded off to the closest decimal point, less than 5,000 viewers) . Their top programme - Quiet Man - reached a Barb-extrapolated total of 40,000 viewers. Their top 10 most-watched shows were as follows:

QUIET MAN	0.04m
RACING GREEN	0.02m
NINE/CLOCK NEWS-TARA	0.02m
CRIMELINE	0.01m
HARBOUR NIGHTS	0.01m
PRIMETIME	0.01m
THE PURE DROP	0.01m
FAIR CITY	0.01m
GARDEN HEAVEN	0.01m
TARA SHOP	0.01m

That's an average of 150,000 viewers.

That might not sound like a lot, but let's compare it to one of the few other digital-only channels on offer at the time, UK Drama :

SNAPPER	0.05m
DUCHESS OF DUKE STRT	0.04m
WODEHOUSE PLAYHOUSE	0.04m
DUCHESS OF DUKE STRT	0.03m
DUCHESS OF DUKE STRT	0.03m
DUCHESS OF DUKE STRT	0.03m
MR WROE'S VIRGINS	0.03m
BLUE REMBRD HILLS	0.02m
BADGER	0.02m
MR WROE'S VIRGINS	0.02m

"Snapper" probably not being an adaptation of Acornsoft's Pac-Man clone, we're guessing. An average of 310,000 viewers.

So, in the grand scheme of things, Tara found itself not a billion miles behind a heavily promoted UKTV channel which was in a better EPG slot at the time (151 vs 178). Considering Tara had only launched on Sky Digital, contained mostly programmes the vast majority of the potential audience won't have heard of, and UK Drama was just the latest in the UKTV family of channels, that's not a bad showing.

One imaginary montage of clocks whizzing forwards and pages falling off a day-by-day calendar later, we find ourselves in Space Year 2007. Looking at the figures for the same week in 2007, how much have the fortunes of the UKTV channel changed since then? The ever useful Barb website has the answer.

NEW TRICKS	0.236m
DALZIEL AND PASCOE	0.229m
THE INSPECTOR LYNLEY MYSTERIES	0.151m
MISS MARPLE	0.13m
NEW TRICKS	0.118m
SHARPE	0.107m
LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE	0.106m
LAST OF THE SUMMER WINE	0.106m
MURDER, SHE WROTE	0.098m
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES	0.098m

An improved average over the top ten programmes of 137,900 viewers. That's up 106,900 viewers on six years previous, or a whopping 349% for any percentage fans in the room. How would that relate to a possible top ten shows for Tara Television, given that we're going to attribute offensively stereotypical titles to each of the programmes in the rundown? It's okay, we've got Irish relatives, so it's not racist.

STICK IT UP YOUR BOLLICKS with ROY KEANE	0.14m
FECK!	0.07m
WHITTLING NOBBLY STICKS WITH PACKIE BONNER	0.07m
THE LATE LATE LATE SHOW LATE	0.03m
I'VE A PIG UNDER MY ARM	0.03m
HORSES RUNNING THROUGH HOUSING ESTATES	0.03m
AMERICANS PRETENDING THEY'RE PART IRISH	0.03m
FAIR CITY	0.03m
THE FAI SLAPSTICK HOUR w/ STAN STAUNTON	0.03m
SIX-ONE NEWS	0.03m

That gives an improved average of 50,000 viewers. Just to put that into context, that would see the channel comfortably ahead of VH-1, UKTV People, Trouble, Men and Motors, Discovery, and pretty much on a par with Challenge. And all with programmes that hadn't already been broadcast on any other British channel. Good going, we'd say. All of which makes it a shame Tara Television went belly up in 2002.

That's no reason why UK Play shouldn't make a comeback, though.

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A Really Quick, Rather Pointless Update About Nothing Much

Now, we kind of already know the answer to this, so there's no need to post a comment, but: if you're going to a produce a movie that even tinkers with the concept of 'having something to do with computers and/or videogames', why not try avoiding something as clichéd and obvious as having any computer used in your entire film being an Alienware laptop? We know you probably had a delicate choice to take between 'morality' and 'being a corporate shill', but really.

Yes, in case you hadn't guessed, we've just made the mistake of having 'Stay Alive' ("with "Malcolm in the Middle"'s Frankie Muniz in it", except he isn't, hardly) on Sky's Anytime TV in the background while playing (and losing at) internet poker, and even then it's the sort of technological shorthand for "we don't really know what we're doing" that really bugs us for some reason. And even then we had the sound turned down because we were listening to an iTunes playlist, and even then it offended us on at least two of our senses*. And now we've even got frigging Scary Movie 4 on in the background (thankfully drowned out by the sound of Frank Black's 93-03). We really need to cancel our Sky Movies subscription is basically what we're saying here.

(*It somehow smelled. Of wee.)

(Don't worry readers, we've just bought a copy of the 1950 BBC Handbook from eBay, so we're sure we'll be able to get a decent update out of that in the next few days.)

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A Very British Twenty-Four

It's October, which means it must be about time for BrokenTV's biannual stab at liking Spooks. We generally give this a go every other year, suspecting our natural aversion to anything being endlessly promoted by the BBC is blinding us to its charms. After all, Life On Mars was 'done' by the people who brought us Spooks, and it's endlessly portraying itself as a turbocharged amalgam of James Bond, 24 and The State Within (which was good, no matter what anyone else says).

Every year, we settle down in our special Watching Telly Chair, and every year we sit through at least two whole episodes. Every year, we walk away cursing ourselves for not remembering that the show is always too busy juggling so-called-'believable' plotlines (except they're not really), tedious exposition and characters trying to act achingly cool (in a very manufactured BBC One Drama Programme in 2007 kind of not really very cool kind of way, like in Hustle).

So, this year's findings? With the same sense of inevitability, it's still as much as a tedium-fest as ever, although this time it seems to be trying harder than ever to 'be' 24.

It's got slidey split screen inter-scene segments showing what the central characters are up to at any given time. It's got conspicuously inconspicuous agents in railway stations talking to their 'control room' via hidden microphones. It's got a bit where the viewers are expected to go "oh noes! A government insider is in on the whole thing! Erm, just like last time." It's got a large room full of people tapping at expensive computer keyboards and saying things like "Can you clean up those five pixels on that grainy mobile phone video footage into something more useful, like a gas bill with the full name and address of the terrorists on it?". All led by Unconventional Boss Woman Who Doesn't Dress Like Anyone Else, Because She's Unconventional Boss Woman, Of Course. And, in a very BBC One Drama Programme in 2007 kind of way, when something slightly surprising happens, the camera zooms in annoyingly on someone's astonished face, just to hammer that point home to everyone at home, in case they'd got confused.

The problem is, the last series of 24 had Jack killing his own brother as a result of an interrogation, a former president being killed by his screaming estranged wife, the current president being blown up and put into a coma (for a bit), and A NUCLEAR BOMB GOING OFF IN THE MIDDLE OF LA, and it was still the least impressive series of 24 so far. Spooks cops out of spending any money on the pivotal huge explosion scene by portraying it purely via the medium of several close ups, a window smashing, and a lo-res satellite imaging feed of the explosion.

We could have knocked that up in Deluxe Paint III.

Although it did have a terrorist who looked like he was going to blow up everyone, but it turned out he was cuddly after all, which is quite like the last series of 24. But then, at least 24 had the foresight to cast the part to an actor who looks like an arabic Wayne Coyne. Oh, and the exact same 'virulent massively toxic chemicals released in a huge city' plot as 24: Day 3. "We have two hours!" Really? Maybe you should have a ticking clock on-screen every few minutes, so we know how we're doing for time. Well, in place of that, we've got a running tally of "UK Infections", updated every time something happens. Not quite as good.

In place of CTU running around large crowded cities trying to stop nuclear explosions going off, we've got running around in forests. Well, have you seen the rates extras are expecting these days? Mind you, what Spooks lacks in proper explosions and Jack Bauery excellence, it makes up for in traditional British Gurning.

Top to bottom:
"I am concerned, this is my concerned face."
"I am concerned, this is my concerned face."
"I am shocked, this is my shocked face."

The close-ups on a computer screen every time someone needs to point at something on one is also worthy of comment. Instead of what in reality would be a gray and blue Windows screen with any picture or video on display contained purely within a plain oblong, with nothing more fancy than a faux-embossed three pixel border, every TFT monitor in Spooksland has to contain eighteen impossibly small perma-scrolling text frames, moving transparent green bars over the top of any pictures and transition effects whenever anything at all updates. Well, if you can't afford to make it look like James Bond in any other sense, why not crowbar in a garish desktop PC interface that might look quite good in the trailers, eh?

And what happens when someone transfers money over an internet bank account? Does it say "Click submit to confirm your transaction" then "done"? Oh-ho-ho-no! A red progress bar moves slowly accross the screen, as if it were downloading a file, of course.

Remind us never to move our account to Harcross Banking. They can't even spell
"transferring" correctly. Anyway, all ransom money should be sent to terrorists via Paypal.

It's the Torchwood van fisco all over again. Except at least Torchwood was supposed to be a bit of daft escapist fun for Doctor Who fans who like swearing, not the challenging and thrilling BBC One drama meant to ROCK the MINDSETS of the viewing millions that Spooks thinks it is.

24?

24p, more like.

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New Target Audience For Ringtone 'Club' Scam Overlords

Now they're after Red Dwarf fans.

Red Dwarf is to return – but as an animated series for mobile phones.

Entertainement company Pitch has created cartoon clips to match audio footage from the original BBC Two series, for which subscribers will pay £3 a week.

That's £3 per week, or more accurately £12 per month. To put that into perspective, you can now pick up the DVD of each series of Red Dwarf for £6.99 from Virgin Megastores. So: for the price of two-and-a-bit video clips of animations of Red Dwarf scenes, you could get an entire series, on high quality DVD, which includes three hours of "clips" (i.e. entire episodes), along with tonnes of extras.

"But!", you may cry whilst idly brushing Pringle crumbs from your I Say Let's Get Out There And Twat It T-shirt, "as somebody who is part of the likely target audience for this mobile enterprise, I've already got the DVDs. What do you say to that, you idiots?"

Okay, cracking open the seal on our Christmas catalogue from Littlewoods (who we'd only signed up with because their 20% off your first order deal meant we could buy a cheap Xbox Live membership), here is a quick list of:

Other Things You Could Buy That Cost The Same Each Month As Some Rubbish Red Dwarf Animated Clips.

• A Bart Simpson folding double door 32-inch LCD Television set (£10.66 per month)
• A Samsung DVD camcorder (£10.87 per month)
• A Nintendo Wii (£8.48 per month)
• A new 80gb iPod Classic (£10.19 per month)
• A 15.4" Goodmans HD Ready LCD TV and DVD combo with built-in Freeview (£11.47 per month)

(Before anyone writes in to say it, we know catalogue prices are artificially inflated and it's worth just going online if you want to buy stuff, but that just highlights the stupid price they're asking for some animated video clips of a programme you'll already own on DVD if you're that bothered about it. And that's not even starting on the prospect of anyone who 'needs' to carry some Red Dwarf clips around with them at all times, for some ungodly reason.)

To put it into even more simple terms, here's a graphical representation of the things you could buy for equal to or less than the amount you'd pay for some Red Dwarf mobile phone clips every month:

Of course, for the sake of humanity as a whole, we're hoping these mobile clips turn out to be a massive failure. Given that the stereotypical image of your average Red Dwarf fan is that of a geek, and given that geeks are supposed to be clever and good at maths, there should be no conceivable way this can succeed. Surely.

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"They've Rebadged It, You Fool" and "The Scientist Replies"

You’ll have to excuse the lack of updates of late, but BrokenTV is now back in college. It’s a lot less like Animal House than we’d anticipated, but we can’t pull out now, or we’ll have to give our employers their £1500 back. This, coupled with our six-day-a-week full time job and ever-present endemic laziness, have unfortunately prevented us from watching much telly worth writing about.

One of the greatest injustices we’ve faced in our course was the way the marketing tutor had originally given us a distinction on a piece of coursework, only to cross that out and downgrade it to a merit. He didn’t even try and hide this from us by using Tipp-Ex, he just put a line through it. Now, we’re not especially bitter about that (no matter what anyone says about that stuff we wrote on his car), but we feel compelled to prove to the reading dozens just how that was completely wrong, and how we’re actually marketing geniuses of the very highest calibre. And all without having to take copious amounts of cocaine, too. We can literally come up with marketing campaigns in our sleep.

During a fitful night’s sleep, we’ve just had a dream. In this dream, we were watching Virgin One (the newly rebadged FTN that we haven’t actually watched yet). At the end of a programme, an ad bumper appeared. The programme was being sponsored by Scottish Widows, and as such the break bumpers featured the company’s Scottish widow. You know the one, a young attractive woman clad in billowy black silk. Not only is she one strip of cloth away from looking like a ninja, but she seems to smile quite often. Far be it from us to cast aspersions, but she doesn’t seem that bothered about being a widow. We’re not necessarily saying she’s poisoned her elderly husband just to get her hands on his large personal fortune, but we’re sure she wouldn’t be quite so cocky if Columbo got involved in the inquest, that’s all.

As you may have noticed, there are pretty much two distinct types of ad bumper. Type one is where the advertiser tries to act all chummy and witty, and get the viewer on-side, such as the woeful Nintendo bumpers for Channel Four’s comedy output (“That’s my boy.” “That’s what you think.” Oh, shit off), or the interminable VC Poker playing cops that crop up on every other digital channel. Type two is the mercifully short bumper that knows you don’t want to like it, so it just mentions a product of company then pisses off, such as the adverts for Hyundi that you see during Dexter on FX (“Hyundi. We exist. Here’s your programme”, basically). The bumpers in our dream were the second type, as advertising ‘creatives’ who come up with deliberately annoying campaigns badly need to be killed with hammers. Killed with hammers while meekly yelping the words “but annoying campaigns stick in the mind more easily so people remember the name of the… gagh”.

Bumper one.

Close up on a pair of white mice in a shoe box. One of them is in a right old state, barely able to move, struggling to drag its dying body around the box. By comparison, Mouse Two is gambolling around the box with gay mousy abandon, just so that the audience can make a clear distinction between Well Mouse and Nearly Dead Mouse. Pan out to reveal a 1950s schoolboy (grey uniform, school cap, no flickknife) holding the box looking distraught. Pan out further to reveal the Scottish Widows Scottish widow has her hand on his shoulder in a comforting manner, and is also looking into the box with a concerned impression on her face. As the sound of a gentle piano sting plays in the background, a caption politely fades onto the screen: Scottish Widows Life Insurance.

Bumper two.

Close up on the same shoe box. The poorly mouse has now passed away, its lifeless body being nudged around the box slowly by its curious former boxmate, who is quite clearly oblivious to the concept of death. Pan out to reveal a crying 1950s schoolboy. Pan out further to reveal the Scottish Widows Scottish widow is trying to comfort the boy, her look seeming to suggest that she understands what he is going through, or possibly an expression which suggests “hey, don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this one”. This time, the soundtrack is silent, like the clock at the end of the first series of 24, and the caption merely states: Undertakers. Now, we realise that Scottish Widows wouldn’t need to mention anything to do with undertakers, but it was a dream. Dreams don’t always make sense, you know. Anyway, if these bumpers were going to be used somewhere, they could always make them for Yellow Pages instead. It could just as easily be James Nesbitt in the widow outfit hugging the child.

But that’s enough of our moderately unsettling dreams. One thing we’ve just discovered about being a student is that we’ve automatically been given access to lots of academic websites from all over the country. One of these is Bournemouth University’s TVTiP site, and is quite wonderfully a searchable database of the TV Times from 1955 to 1985. Sadly, there are no full scans on offer, save for a few tiny images of covers, but all text is fully searchable and the site is very quick to use. You can even browse the listings by day, and there’s even the option to export a whole monthly schedule to a text file.

Using the database, here are just a few of the offerings made to viewers of the Light Network during its very first fortnight on air.

Friday 23 Sep 1955, 12:10 (5 mins)
Friday's Man

Every week at this time you have an appointment with an attractive personality who will entertain you.

Friday 23 Sep 1955, 19:20 (10 mins)
Friday's Girl

In this unsophisticated, informal programme Sheila Mathews will sing three songs of varying types - bright, point, and ballad - accompanied by an ensemble of piano, bass, drum, vibraphone, electric guitar and clarinet.

Performers: Sheila Mathews, Malcolm Lockyer and his Music

[Note: The following week this was rebranded under the excellent moniker “Melody Maid”. What’s not to like? And you’ve got to admire any programme which proudly declares itself as ‘unsophisticated’. Jeremy Kyle ought to take note.]

Saturday 24 Sep 1955, 19:45 (30 mins)
Colonel March (Episode 1. Passage at Arms)

A complete half-hour mystery story featuring Colonel March of Scotland Yard, Head of the Department of Queer Complaints. A wealthy widow named Martha is murdered - and the suspects include members of the English and French teams taking part in an international fencing tournament. The climax comes in a bout between a young artist and his English friend - with Colonel March of Scotland Yard as referee.

Monday 26 Sep 1955, 12:10 (5 mins)
It's An Idea

Each week someone will tell you about a useful idea that they have had and demonstrate how to carry it out. This week Jeanne Kent shows, in the simplest way, how to make a lampshade.

Monday 26 Sep 1955, 22:20 (30 mins)
The Scientist Replies

Why do men go bald? Will there ever be a three minute mile? Will atomic power ever provide economical electrical energy? These are just some of the questions to which the scientists on this programme will have to reply during the series. Viewers wishing to find the answer to a scientific problem are invited to submit questions.

Tuesday 27 Sep 1955, 11:10 (5 mins)
Are Husbands Really Necessary

John Blythe thinks they are, but his wife has her doubts.

Wednesday 28 Sep 1955, 17:00 (15 mins)
Rumpus Point

A weekly programme featuring Keith Smith and Alan Maxwell in a quarter of an hour of slapstick fun.

Wednesday 28 Sep 1955, 20:30 (60 mins)
Cavalcade of Sport

A weekly series which will feature professional tennis, Association and Rugby football and other national sports. We begin with a salute to the leading personalities in the sporting world, gathered in the studio for the first in the "Cavalcade of Sport" series. Our cameras then go to Woolwich Stadium to watch the second half of the Rugby League match between Wigan and Huddersfield, first of a series of games for the Rugby League Television Trophy presented by Associated Rediffusion.

Saturday 1 Oct 1955, 20:15 (45 mins)
Saturday Showtime

There is only one thing that can be said with certainty about this "Goon" programme - Harry Secombe - there he is on the right - will be there to introduce a series of artistes who will compete with him in "Goonery". And "Goonery" is a word already being added to the English dictionary. It means the art of introducing the unexpected. Look in at 8.15 and expect the unexpected.

Monday 3 Oct 1955, 12:15 (15 mins)
Small Time

A special programme for the under-fives. Rolf Harris tells a story with pictures and invites his young audience to help him in drawing the pictures with their "big black crayons" and enormous pieces of paper. Jean Ford tells her own stories.

[Rolf Harris! He must have been about six years old at the time. Cripes.]

Tuesday 4 Oct 1955, 12:10 (20 mins)
5th National Fabric Fair

Today the remote cameras go to the Royal Albert Hall, London, where Margot Lovell will be examining and showing some of the new fabrics which will be in the shops in the Spring. These beautiful fabrics are eagerly awaited by the world's leading fashion buyers. In the hands of the experts this material will grace the world's best-dressed women.

Now, despite all of you probably still sniggering up your sleeves at the thought of there being a Department of Queer Complaints, there’s one thing those programmes pretty much have in common. National Fabric Fairs aside, we’re saying there’s a large possibility we’d be tuning in to see the majority of those programmes at least once, if only for curiosity value. Compare that to the ITV1 of 2007, where there isn’t even a Cavalcade of anything, and pretty much no children’s television at all, much less ones that have the word Rumpus in the title. It’s all very easy to snort derisively at being told how to make a lampshade, but come on. What’s really preferable? Rounding off the broadcast day with “And so to Bed”, where "Kay Cavendish gives you glimpses of tomorrow's programmes and bids you goodnight", or ITV Play trying to trick slow-witted people out of their child allowance?

1955 WINS.

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The Lacklustre Video Show: Part One

If you're anything like BrokenTV, you'll have an unhealthy addiction to a lot of things. Cockspur rum, cheese and ham flavour Hot Pockets, referring to yourself in the third person, rubbing our 'special purpose' endlessly when in polite company and heroin (only joking about that last one, Mum). But by far the worst of our habits is being utterly incapable of not buying any DVDs we see on offer at under four pounds. Sometimes, they're an unmissable barg (The Flaming Lips: VOID, The Goodies LWT Shows, Tatu: Screaming for More, Straw Dogs, the entire Laurel and Hardy collection, Amazon Women On The Moon). Sometimes, they're offerings worth it just for esoteric value (Terry Wogan: One on One, Morecambe and Wise At The Movies). Well worth the effort, we're sure you agree.

Better than heroin on toast.

Most frequently, they're things that we know we're going to hate (or already hate), but we can't help ourselves because they cost less than four of the shiny objects in our pocket. Our DVD shelves contain offerings such as Alien vs Predator, Blue Streak, Churchill: The Hollywood Years, Die Another Day, Extras, Forrest Gump, God of Gamblers, Happy Gilmour, I-Spy, Jam, King Kong, Lucky Number Slevin, Men In Black 2, Natural Born Killers, Outbreak, Passenger 57, Rush Hour, Spider-Man, Terminator Woman, U-571, Wedding Crashers, and X-Men. And that's just cherry-picking one clunker for each letter of the alphabet. And it means we're tempted to go out and buy some crap films beginning with the letters Q, V, Y and Z just to complete that set now. Gah. And it gets worse, there are at least a couple of items on that list which we own two copies of - the thought process in Tesco generally being "Hey, it's only three quid. I'm sure we haven't already got it, it wouldn't have been worth paying more than three pounds for. We'll buy it", without realised that we'd said exactly the same to ourselves about three weeks previously in Woolies. That's what rum, Hot Pockets and heroin do to the brain, we suppose.

In the first of an irregular series, we're going to take a look at some of the especially disappointing collections we wouldn't have spent more than a fiver on.


The Dick Cavett Show: Rock Icons

Coming in a splendidly packaged three-disc boxset, this compilation of the finest episodes from a chat show host we'd never heard of, including musical performances from lots of artists we'd never heard of (Tex Ritter or The Jessy Dixon Singers, anyone?), made us hope it'd be right up there with all the bits we've seen of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In actual fact, it's all quite uninspiring stuff, with the only bit our brains have even bothered to recall were where the host got a bit annoyed with the neckercheif his producers had told him to wear in order to appear 'hip', and duly chucked it away on air. Hardly up there with Johnny Carson teaming up with James Randi to expose Uri Geller as the great big fat charlatan [citation needed] he really is. Probably that's why it was only a fiver.

Wikipedia does reveal that there are other Dick Cavett DVD collections that sounds a lot more promising, such as the Comic Legends four-disc set which includes interviews with Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Bill Cosby, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Groucho Marx and The Smothers Brothers. We're guessing we're a lot less likely to pick that up in any sale soon.

In defence of Dick Cavett, at least one of his shows is available on the internet in its entirety and further in his defence, at least he's not as bad as bloody Dave "Dave" Letterman.



Domino (2005)

Bah and gah. We saw this ages ago, and disliked it immensely. It does have an interesting premise based on real events - Domino Harvey eschews her privileged background to become a bounty hunter. Plus, Terry Wogan is in it, how could it possibly be anything less than excellent? Unfortunately, as it's directed by Tony Scott, the whole thing is shot as if it were an advert for Pepsi Max, making the whole movie seem like a massive eye-buggering chore. Two out of ten.

And yet! When we saw it in Asda for £3, we somehow accidentally bought it. This sort of thing probably explains why small children often point and laugh at our stupid faces in the street.

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Let The Rugby Commence

"Hurrah! Another try for Whimsby Harriers!"

It's the Rugby World Cup again. A sport that has a number of redeeming characteristics when compared to the sport a ruggerloving colleague of BrokenTV's Mark X constantly refers to as 'poof-ball'. Players who don't squabble like girls every time a line-out/throw-in doesn't go their way, who don't crowd and whine around the referee like dicks for every decision that doesn't go their way, officials who are willing to use instant video replays for decisions that will have a notable impact at what is after all, the highest level of their chosen sport. It's just a pity the actual sport isn't anywhere near as good as football, really. But anyway, what of the TV coverage? Maybe we should compile a Rugby World Cup 2007 TV Coverage FAQ.

BrokenTV's Rugby World Cup 2007 TV Coverage FAQ

* Has Gabriel Clarke really missed out on his true vocation in life: playing the slightly smug posh bloke who steals the central character's girlfriend at the beginning of movies (in a scene which contains the line "he's more of a man than you'll ever be"), only to lose out after a stunning act of redemption by the central character in the last five minutes? YES HE HAS.

* Will ITV make everyone sit through the opening ceremony on full and tedious detail, with a commentator dutifully reading out a press release about how the dancing people in lycra are now representing the story of The Prince of the Seven Golden Cows? MERCIFULLY NOT.

* Are ITV about to fall into their usual trap of trying cling onto a few extra viewers by trying to make out that England are definitely going to win the large sporting event? PENDING ANSWER.

* Will they plaster the phrase "Exclusively on ITV" onto every caption that they possibly can? YES THEY WILL.

* Will ITV try to claim that the Rugby World Cup is "the world's third biggest sporting event" at every opportunity this time around, even though it really, really isn't? WE DON'T THINK SO, BUT WE MISSED THE FIRST FEW MINUTES OF THEIR COVERAGE.

* Why have Volkswagen changed their 'midlife crisis' advert so that the bit where the car shown outside the office is now in a different setting, and the tubby Scouser now says "is that your Passat?" instead of "is that your car?" WE DON'T KNOW, BUT IT DOES REAFFIRM OUR OPINION ON ADVERTISING AGENCIES.

* Will BrokenTV suddenly lose all interest in the Rugby World Cup once Wales contrive to balls up their opening match against Canada? YES.

* In fact, is BrokenTV not really that bothered about rugby after all, and that its favourite thing about any Rugby World Cup is the way the 1999 tournament meant loads of road signs in Wrexham had to be translated into Japanese and Samoan? GETTING TO BRIEFLY LIVE IN A TOWN WHERE THE ROAD SIGNS ARE IN JAPANESE, WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT THAT?

* Is that why you've lazily restricted the blog's coverage of the event to a simple question and answer format, so you don't get rumbled for not understanding why the referees always seem to give away penalties when as far as you can tell, nothing at all has happened? NOT AT ALL. OOH, THAT WAS A QUALITY SCRIMMAGE BY THE ALL-CYANS, THERE. WHICH ONES ARE BRAZIL, AGAIN?

"I say, Sebastian. I must disagree with that last tackle."

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Eliana's Brazilian Big Night, and Those Big Brother Results

So, who won our Big Brother Fame-O-meter, then? Why, the excellent Brian of course. See?



A late surge from Brian helped him take the prize, picking up bonus multipliers for winning the series (25%), being our favourite (10%), having his own Wikipedia page (another 25%). Having his own page also helped Jonathan take a somewhat unlikely second place, just in front of the excellent twins. Sam and Amanda finishing joint second in Friday's final sees them gain a 15% boost, and the extra 10% for being our joint favourite with Brian sees them knock Charley unceremoniously into fifth place. Ha ha.

So, what have we learned over this series of Big Brother, the first 'normal' series of BB we've bothered with since the first one? Well, trying to wade into it pouring scorn on all the contestants for little or no reason is the act of a cad (or a slightly longer word beginning with 'C'), as a glance at the Sunday Mirror's TV review section (or BrokenTV's intro to BB2007) will attest. If you're going to take the piss out of Big Brother and you're not Sean Lock, just don't bother. You'll look bad.

The other thing we've learned from BB2007: it goes on way too long. And it really doesn't provide a lot of comic potential once you've made a concious decision not to simply slag off everyone involved. Which is why we haven't got anything remotely amusing to say about it here.

SPECIAL FEATURE!
SECRET TELEVISION: Part One - Massive Picture Special

But that's enough about Big Brother, because we've got a new favourite programme ever. Lurking in the Sky EPG stratosphere is a delightfully deranged Brazilian channel called Record TV (Channel 801). Generally, their output seems to consist of incomprehensible local news reports, variety shows hosted by a moustachioed man in a neck brace, telenovellas where absolutely nothing happens, and shows like 'Tudo é Possível'.

Now admittedly, we don't speak word uno of Portuguese, so we're not best qualified to judge, but luckily that's never stopped us spewing forth our judgement before now. Running on Sunday afternoons from 4pm until 8.30pm - yes, you read that right - the Sky infobox describes Tudo é Possível as "Eliana hosts a programme with lots of stuff and curiosity". Anyone able to resist the promise of a show containing over four hours of stuff and curiosity can only have a heart of stone. For the benefit of our listeners and the non-Portuguese-speaking population of Earth, here's a synopsis of what happened from the point we tuned into the show (at about 6pm, just after the football, the sport that we still haven't got to starting our blog about yet).

As we crash into the broadcast, there seems to be some sort of quiz going on. As far as we can understand, here's what happens. Two contestants each stand in their own perspex booth and answer questions. But! For each question they answer correctly, they are charged with the task of inviting another person, dressed in a ludicrous outfit, into their booth. Outfits seem to include but are not limited to: Giant frogs; men dressed as tomatoes; a ringmaster on stilts; a fat naked man in a barrel; an Egyptian mummy; a ballet dancer. As each new person is introduced to the stage, Johnny (or Jemima) Contestant has one minute to cram everyone into the confines of their booth o' fun. If they manage to do so, they are allowed to continue. If they fail, they LOSE AN ARM. Actually, we're making that bit up, because we didn't see anyone fail.

In tonight's show, it was Male Contestant who was best able to cram everything into his ker-azy cubicle, and so he goes on to the main event. As you can see by looking at the following pictures with your eyes.

But what of Female Contestant? What happens to her? SHE IS INTRODUCED TO A SLIGHTLY SINISTER JESTER.

Nooooooo! Oh, hang on. He is juggling some balls (as is the way of the harlequin). They seem to contain prizes. He wants Female Contestant to pick one of them. Or else.

Brr. It's like an unsettling combination of Golden Balls and Stephen King's It. Female Contestant picks a ball (not pictured here), and so lovely host Eliana shows the world what's in the balls she didn't pick. Hey, they've got over four hours to kill.

This is what she didn't win. Which is lucky, as Escolna Outra Bolinna is rubbish. We imagine. Babelfish tells the prize translates into English as... "Escolna Another Bolinna". Thanks, Babelfish.

This is what she did win. 1000 Brazilian Reals. A quick visit to xe.com tells us that the prize is worth £252.26. Boo, cheapskates! The tomato suit probably cost twice that.

Now it's onto some sort of pre-recorded outdoor thing. There are clips of a Radio One Roadshow-type event, which are displayed alongside lots of product placement. This is then followed by clips of various activities such as children playing, old people in a hall, and a dentist performing surgery on a woman. We hope those aren't the prizes. Suddenly, £252.26 doesn't sound so bad after all. You can probably get an Xbox 360 Elite and a copy of Bioshock for that in Brazil.

Ah, no. Here come the prizes. A television. A cooker. And a microwave. And, depending on what the caption means, R$5000 on top of that, or not.

To win, he needs to... well, we're not sure. Now all of the fancy dress people are lined up, wearing numbers, as if they're about to have a race around the TV studio, which would be ACE. That's the sort of thing that should happen in Television Centre every Saturday night. They could have lottery numbers stuck to their front or something. But now Lovely Eliana is holding up two envelopes, which mean... something. Not sure what.

Before Male Contestant gets to choose, we're shown a bit of his home life. A bit like they used to do on Families At War, except it's not Vic and Bob cavorting around someone's residence. Ah, Families At War, another show that ought to be on iPlayer. Sigh.

We're back in the studio, and he's picked an envelope. He doesn't want to change it. But before we get to see the outcome, it's MC Sapao, who does a nice rap for the ladies and gentlemen.

Top Tip: If you're trying a portray yourself as a bit of a gangsta, try not to be pictured performing in front of an identity line-up comprising of giant frogs, Frankenstein's monsters and bestilted ringmasters. It tends to dampen your impact somewhat. There's a reason Ghostface Killah never appeared on Doobie Duck's Disco Bus.

Now, back to the envelopes. After a metric ton of faffing around (over four hours, remember), it is opened. And it contains...

"Sem colher de cha". Or, "Without spoon of cha". Thanks again, Babelfish. All a bit of a comedown after all that. Instead he gets to pick a person in a costume, who he may possibly have to marry as some kind of consolation prize. Luckily for him then, that he picks the beauty queen.

But alack! Lovely Eliana has gone over to Male Contestant's girlfriend in the audience, and has asked her to pick a potential life-mate for him instead. Sensing a chance for revenge, she picks the berk dressed as a tree. Now, surely Male Contestant won't decide to marry...

Oh. Behind the numbers is a prize. He gets to pick one prize. Aah. He picks the tree. After much (more) fannying around, the prize is revealed.

It is a microwave. He doesn't look elated. He decides to gamble on the beauty queen. After another dose of fannying around, her prize is revealed to be...

a black dot. We don't need to be a polyglot to understand that this means he's won piss all. The beauty queen seems quite pleased by that, for some reason. It transpires that the lady frog contained the big money. Forlorn, Male Contestant walks away. All that took up forty-five minutes of his life. But at least he hadn't made a misguided decision to transcribe it all in minute detail, like us. That takes much longer. Of course, if he'd ever entered one of those 'pick the football team' charity raffle card things you get in pubs occasionally, he'd have known the prize is never under the most popular choice. The beauty queen is clearly Liverpool or Manchester United, whereas the female frog is the Tudo é Possível equivalent of Airdrie or Crewe. It's a no-brainer.

From the quiz segment, we move onto a dubbed clip from 'Breaking The Magicians Code' (or, 'A Volta Do Magico Dos Magicos'). The action split-screens back to the Tudo é Possível studio, where members of the audience are invited to guess how it's done. A bit like those nicely diverting Saturday night magic specials the BBC did a few years ago. A bit pointless, and it's lucky we'd Live-Paused it to write all this bumph, so we can skip past it.

Now you're talking: Brazilian adverts! We could do a long and unpopular update just about these. Mercifully, we won't. We'll restrict ourselves to the following pictures.

The last of these is a trailer for "Show Do Tom", which is on later. We're mightily tempted to compile another synopsis of that, but we'd quite like to have some readers left this time tomorrow.

After the break, they carry on with the Magicians Code bits for ages, merely cutting to Lovely Eliana asking an audience member how they think it's done, just before they reveal the answer (a false body switcheroo, generally). It's a bit like us just copying and pasting text from UK:Resistance and saying whether we thought each bit was funny or not, then claiming it's all-new content. Whereas of course, in reality, we just copy and paste it all into Blogger, but then replace the words 'Sonic', 'Sega' and 'Emily Booth' with 'ITV1', 'Big Brother' and 'Dark Haired One Out Of Tatu'. All this has also reminded us how 'Breaking The Magicians Code' could be very interesting, if only it didn't make the seemingly conscious decision to be irredeemably shit instead.

Suddenly, the show is hijacked by another programme called 'Sorria Voce Esta Na Record', where a bloke who looks a bit like a jolly Hugo Chávez and a bloke who's supposed to be an American (but who clearly isn't) are in front of a crowd.

Before we can understand what's going on, a man with a bag of potatoes wanders on, and begins to chuck spuds at 'John', with accompanying comedy sound effects. The man (called Shaolin, a caption handily tells us) is angry about some sort of misunderstanding. The jolly Chávez man calms it down, and everyone laughs.

Then, in accordance with the UN statute that states all non-English television stations must have a hidden-camera stunt show BY LAW, it's prank time. A man asks passers-by to start a sprint, by firing a starters pistol. This happens every day in Brazil, we imagine. Certainly, none of the passers by seem perturbed by this. But, when they fire the pistol, a dead pigeon falls out of the tree above them. Repeat several times. Ha-ha-larity ensues.

(Hilarity not pictured)

Cut back to the Tudo é Possível and Lovely Eliana. She tells us to, well, do one, as it's the end of the show. No credits, no end music, not even any applause, just a station logo and copyright notice. No messing about at Record TV. At this point, we can't help but feel they could have made a bit more effort here. Maybe have Lovely Eliana's comedy dad walking in and shouting "right, I want you all out of my house now" or something. Oh well.

The next programme (after Incomprehensible Local News which includes lots of old men in a field playing accordions) is a talent show called, quite magnificently," Successo!"

We make our excuses, and put the Spanish Football on. But we'll be back for more next week, Lovely Eliana. Maybe. If only to see what sort of thing goes on for the first two hours. We do hope it isn't just Lovely Eliana explaining the rules to the costume-stuff-box game.

NEXT TIME ON SECRET TELEVISION: Sitting through hours of TVEi, trying to find something to write about.

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