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Recently I have noticed a huge upsurge in the number of television programs which feature surviving disasters, it’s the old triumph-over-adversity stuff that we really want to see nowadays. But what’s happened to gardening on tv? A couple of years ago, you couldn’t switch a tv set on without seeing some guy pruning or mulching, or doing a garden makeover.

I’ve decided to do an extensive analysis of recent tv trends, and place them into a list…

• List shows - you know the ones. I thought I’d begin with these shows as it seems appropriate to place them into a list. Whether it be top 20s, 50s, 100s, or the 439 Greatest >insert something from popular culture here< Of ALL Time, these shows are all over the place. Still. Its a relatively simple formula, and requires little or no creativity on the part of the show maker. Just get a load of archived clips, show them to some vaguely familiar “funny” characters and film their opinion of them. If the show lasts forever, that is all the better. I once watched a 100 greatest show on Channel 4 in the UK which lasted for an entire Sunday AND Monday evening…
• Home Makeover Shows – these became perplexingly popular in the mid to late 90s. All of a sudden, we felt the need to get some cheap wood and make ‘floating’ shelves all over our homes, and paint them in garish colours. Extra marks were awarded for ‘feature walls’ and if we did our neighbours house and they didn’t like it…
• Property Development Shows – the logical conclusion of interior design becoming a favourite pass-time of the TV watching masses, property development quickly rose to stardom towards the year 2000. All of a sudden, people were buying houses for 1 penny, throwing some paint at them, and selling them on for hundreds of thousands. Its so easy. Except it isn’t.
• Cooking Shows – these have always been popular, but for some reason, they went beserk about 5 years ago. Up popped Jamie Oliver, and everyone was wobbling a camera around, and filming far-too-close to the food to actually see it. Soon afterwards, Gordon Ramsay awoke from his slumber, and one couldn’t cook a meal without saying “f**K” or “c**t” or f**king c**t” at least 17 times.
• Holidays / Neighbours / Anything From Hell – or a variation of this. Basically, you got someone – who had experienced a really horrible time – to describe it, in great detail, while we, the viewer, reveled in the fact that it had not happened to us. Pure sadistic voyeurism. A delight.
• Gardening Shows – gardening went mad about the same time as we got foppish effeminate chaps telling us how to create a masterpiece out of ‘reclaimed timber’ in our living room. Then it became all the rage to ‘do up’ our garden. Or a neighbours. Or the local common land. Or anything green which we could point a camera at.
• Afternoon Women Bitching About Men / Life Shows – these are REALLY popular now. Around lunchtime, on most channels world-wide, you will find a group of prematurely menopausal women gathered to whine about how their ‘hubby’ is really terrible at mowing the lawn/washing up/remembering birthdays/anniversaries/Christmas. These shows often feature guests who are either other menopausal women, or are ‘hunks’ who the presenters will gawp and grovel at for five uncomfortable minutes.
• Chat Shows Presented by a ‘Comedian’ – in the Jay Leno (US), Johnathon Ross/Parkinson (UK), Rove (Australia) format. These shows show no sign of disappearing. More’s the pity. They usually involve a more-than-healthy dose of sycophantic banality, interwoven with some marginally funny comedy. They often end with a song – from an obscure band – which seems entirely inappropriate for whatever preceded it. Two questions usually spring to mind when watching these shows: 1. Why must every guest be accompanied to the sofa by music from a live band? 2. What is the point of the song at the end?

That is the list for now, though I’m sure I have overlooked some. Leave a comment at the bottom to point out my stupidity, and I’ll add to this extensive list. I might add that the latest formula for great TV is this:

1. Make sure it is light hearted and in NO way touches upon a serious subject. You don’t want to bore or exclude the peeps who are watching.

2. Get guests. Any guests. The more famous the better. It doesn’t matter whether their last TV experience was in the background of Last Of The Summer Wine, just get them on.

3. Make sure you feature ‘real people’.

4. Whatever you do, do not forget that all audiences need to see things in this order, before and after each advertisement, or even in between segments:

1. “Coming Up…” then show advert;
2. “Previously” (in case they forgot);
3. Show 4 minutes of new programming; then
4. “re-cap”; then
5. repeat from “coming up”

5. Make sure you “engage” your audience (and fight the uphill battle against “THE INTERNET”) by reading out plenty of emails and texts.

Failure to adhere to this standard will see audiences forgetting entirely what they have been watching, or they’ll be unaware as to what is about to happen. More importantly, you, the program maker, would have to make more actual program if you do not do this. Got half an hour of content? Follow the above et voila, it has become an hour-and-a-half TV marathon event!
That’s it. Now go forth and make programs.