Strictly Who Do You Think Dragons' Apprentices Dance With... on ice

It has to be said that I don't watch a lot of TV these days; well, not compared to when I was a student anyway. I don't know if its a lack of time or general disinterest but I rarely watch more than a three hours a week (and most of that is Match of the Day so it doesn't count - watching sport is a healthy pastime) Having said all that I am fairly good at keeping abreast of TV land through the tabloid press and television listings in the Independent.

Yesterday I sat down to watch the Northern Ireland v Wales friendly match. As anyone who watched it will tell you this was not the most exciting match in history and I was forced to change the channel occasionally to avoid falling asleep. On the other channel was Dragons' Den, a show where people put their ideas to a bunch of rich people hoping to get a hand out... except no! This couldn't be Dragons' Den - it's ITV. And I'm pretty sure Richard (the man of the people... but certainly not my people) Madeley doesn't host Dragons' Den. It turns out this was a completely different show called The Fortune. In this show people put their ideas to a bunch of rich people hoping to get a hand out... hmmm... sounds familiar.

So ITV have decided that it would be a good idea to churn out a low grade rip off of a BBC2 show as peak time viewing. Have they looked at BBC2 ratings? The whole point of BBC2 is to provide a quality alternative to ratings chasing peak time programmes on BBC1 and ITV. Therefore it stands to reason that a copy (and a particularly bad copy at that) of a BBC2 show is hardly going to be a ratings winner. Or maybe the TV bosses know something we don't - maybe they have some research showing that pairing Richard (doesn't like Danii Minogue cause she calls him a letch) Madeley with an arrogant, football club owning, surfer wannabe would make dynamite viewing. Oops.

It's not as if they can claim ignorance - looking at ITVs weekly peak time viewing at the moment suggests that they've tried all this before:

Dancing on Ice... a complete rip off of the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing... but with ice.
You Don't Know You're Born... a complete rip off of the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are.
The Tycoon... a complete rip off of the BBC's Apprentice... which was a complete rip off of NBC's Apprentice.

Will someone please come up with something original and send it to ITV. If only to stop me complaining about it online. It was still more interesting than a Northern Ireland against Wales football match though.