Saturday night's alright... for dancing?
Twenty million viewers tuned-in to watch Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor go head-to-head. Is Saturday evening TV back?
Quentin Letts, writing in today's Daily Mail, is the most vociferous proponent of the idea that we've all been subject to a tyranny of metropolitan media luvvies giving us increasingly family-unfriendly television. Now, according to Letts, TV bosses have been shocked to learn that actually what the nation wanted all along was wholesome entertainment that was engaging but easy on the brain. Watching hopefuls, both celebrities and nobodies, trying to turn themselves into dancers and singers is just the ticket. 'Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor have been watchable, popular family telly,' says Letts. 'They have been doing what Saturday night television should do, which is to provide a central entertainment which all generations can quietly enjoy.'
It's not as if TV bosses haven't been trying. They've been absolutely desperate to drum up the kind of viewing figures enjoyed in the past by The Two Ronnies, The Generation Game or The Val Doonican Show. These shows were banal but previous attempts to find their modern successors have frequently been rubbish: think Celebrity Wrestling, or anything presented by cheeky ex-footballer Ian Wright. Thankfully, now that people have a few more options on a Saturday night, the audiences for such televisual anaesthesia are in long-term decline. What Letts wants to resurrect is old-fashioned family life and the kind of shared national experience that is rarely found on television outside of sport these days. It's going to take a lot more than a hot-stepping cricketer and a soulful shoe-shop salesman to manage that trick.
Now That's Entertainment!, Daily Mail, 19 December 2005