From Scribbles To Squeals

Once again it's been rather empty today.

There was an interesting article in the Media Guardian today about a scribbled note by retired TV executive Alan Boyd written in Spring 2001 after a meeting with Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell who he had never met before.

They had met to discuss a possible Saturday night hit for ITV under the name of "Your Idol" and it then exploded into a much talked phenomenon a year later and spawned several other series of a similar nature.

I had no idea that Alan Boyd had a hand in commissioning Pop Idol, when you take into account he was responsible for producing The Generation Game,
and bringing Game For A Laugh and Blind Date to our screens.

However the thing I admire him for the most was when he was at TVS
who had a backlog of some of the finest gameshows on television at the time, and he refused to broadcast Giles Brandeth's "Star Quality" in their region
in 1989.

Just to give you an idea of how bad it was, here's another appearance of
Robert Popper's dissection from the first Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe. (0.45)

On a similar note there's another article on the BBC News website about how film and television in the present day can boost sales of otherwise forgotten tunes.

If anyone plans to audition for the next series of the X Factor, then I hope they opt to perform the Cog's "Everyday".