The undoubted hit TV show of the last week or so has been a strange talent show called “Britain’s Got Talent.”
Now I haven’t watched a single episode, but seemingly 11m tuned in for the final yesterday evening to see an opera singer win (Great! More light operatic albums on the horizon. We sure do need more of those).
So ITV must be really pleased then? Aside from a couple of incidents that rather suggest a stricter vetting procedure needs to be put in place for the (inevitable) next series, all seems good.
Well let me throw a small spanner in the works. Although the programme largely went out beyond the watershed, the final was broadcast at 8pm, and it seems likely that a reasonable proportion of those viewers would have been kids. The programme finished at 9pm, and the results show wasn’t broadcast until 10pm. It seems most viewers would have tuned in for the results show.
But in between them was the frankly awful Talk To Me starring Max Beesley, that ITV’s been hyping to the hilt over the last couple of weeks. Beesley plays a DJ in a radio station that’s frankly unlike any I’ve ever seen, and despite shagging anything that moves, falls for his best friend’s wife, while his teacher sister has fallen for a pupil. A great cast in a truly terrible script. Anyway, it’s all relatively adult fare. So is sandwiching an entertainment programme around it such a smart idea? Viewers might have disappeared off to watch David Dimbleby take us scenically around the UK (coming just after BBC2 had taken us scenically around, the coast of, uh, the UK, but that’s another story), or they might have been watching the adult themed BBC2 drama Sex, the City and Me, or even the undoubtedly adult-themed B** B****** on C4. But Talk To Me got 1.3m more viewers than it did last week, which is unusual for a four part series when viewers have missed part 1.
It just seems to me that something a little more family-friendly might have better been sandwiched between the final and results shows of a talent show.
[Note: As I didn’t watch a single episode, for all I know Britain’s Got Talent was full of smutty comedians and “exotic” dancers, making it appropriately complementary to an adult drama. But press coverage of opera singers and six-year-olds suggests not]