Very taxing indeed

12/19/2008 04:05:00 pm / The truth was spoken by Rich /


The TV license is a tax on television owners, watching or listening to the BBC has become a tax on the stupid. There doesn't seem to be a single TV show or radio show on the BBC now that doesn't involve a phone-in. Almost all of those phone-ins are irrelevant too from the point of view of the listener and viewer.

The BBC have been fined again recently for offering up a prize phone-in on radio shows that were ostensibly live, but were actually pre-recorded, therefore anyone phoning in had no chance at all of getting through to the particular host of the show cause he'd gone home hours ago.

Are people genuinely still assuming these phone-in things are legit? Shooooowarly not. And this Strictly Come Dancing thing, what the fuck is all that abaaart. The whole show I mean, not just the voting. It's popularity is the most exceptional example of what Hitler was talking about when he said, "All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach."

The BBC are very accomplished at persuading people that their TV shows are awesome. Their hype is so convincing to prole England, people are having sleepless nights wondering whether an ex-footballer or failed pop singing contestant will cha-cha-cha successfully at the weekend.

When you break the show down, it's C-list celebrities competing in a ballroom dancing competition at which they're complete novices, yes? No matter how many sparkly costumes you clothe these people in and no matter how many twinkly bits you surround the sets with, that's all the show amounts to. Yet people are fucking mental about it.

Why was Come Dancing never that popular? The contestants on that show could actually dance no? If the appeal is not the dancing then what is it? Austin Healey? How many of the shows viewers know anything about Rugby or his Rugby career specifically? I don't doubt it takes talent to dance properly - I can't dance, I've seen people on fire move better than me, but something that requires talent isn't necessarily entertaining.

Bricklaying requires talent, but getting Ali McCoist and Adrian Chiles to build a wall against the clock isn't going to have people on the edges of their seats. Or at least, I hope it wouldn't any way. But if they played loud music, put twinkly bits on the bricks and had a panel of really abusive judges and gave the viewers the opportunity to vote off a contestant via a ruthless public phone-in, who knows?

Whatever the appeal, why the desperate need to vote? Why do people have such a burning desire to phone-in to things on TV? Just so they can shit on someone? There's a cabillion shows on TV now that offer you the opportunity to phone-in and give your irrelevant opinion about an irrelevant subject and they've managed to persuade millions of people this is a privilege you should pay for.

And the expense on each viewer is compounded by their need to then text all of their friends with their choice, which incurs an extra charge of £1 or £2 depending on your network charges. "I voted Austin off, E is such a cunt." And all of those texts and phone calls mean nothing. No one at the BBC is tallying your votes and your mates don't give a toss either.

Might it be that so many people have so few opinions now on anything important that TV phone-ins are the last bastion of expression for their self-importance? Ask someone in the street why a 2% cut in VAT is a pointless measure to lift the nation out of a recession and they may cry and run off, but ask them whether John Sergeant should have pulled out of Strictly Come Dancing and you'll get a rambling 15 minute speech about how unfair it all was.

If Gordon Brown wants to ease the recession and get the chav demographic of the country spending again - then really he just needs to ban phone-in's for 6 months, that's what I always say. If all that money saved was injected into the economy probably via Argos and Threshers, we'd have an economy as healthy as the Germans in no time. It's no coincidence the Germans have no phone-in shows. I've said my piece, I'll bid you good day.

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