Here's a frightening statistic which sent a shiver down my spine earlier this week: When Dragons Den (BBC 2) and Police, Camera, Action (ITV1) went head-to-head a week ago, the result was a draw.
Yes, as many people watched a cheap-to-produce, thrown-together collection of clips of cops in action as opted for the carefully produced, two hours filming for every pitch lasting 10 minutes on screen TV show fronted by the ever impressive Evan Davis.
Sad, isn't it?
Admittedly, the rather-worse-than-the-last-series new episode of New Tricks (BBC 1) won outright against the other two, but it's still rather worrying, isn't it?
Police, Camera, Action was good in its day - that is, in the early 1990s - but surely people have had enough of these "police doing their jobs" programmes. At best, they are mildly interesting, at worst, they feel just like scheduling filler.
And by no means is ITV alone when it pads out its schedules with tv-cameras-following-people-doing-their-job programmes. And while that's great news for Jamie Theakston, the voice over person of choice for these programmes, it's a nightmare for those of us who, while appreciating what the emergency services do, are happy for the police just to get on with their jobs. Forget all this concern about them spending too much time doing paperwork, it's beginning to look as though they're spending too much time doing their make-up for the cameras.
This week alone, we've had Cars, Cops and Criminals (BBC 1), River Police (BBC 1), Police, Camera Action (ITV1), Wild Animal ER (sorry, same genre even if it is animals on C5), CCTV Cities (C5), Send in the Dogs (about the transport police, ITV1), Extraordinary Animals (dogs in the emergency services, C5), Frontline Fire and Rescue (ITV 1), Sky Cops (BBC 1), Bouncers (gloryfying wannabe cops on nightclub steps, ITV 1) and my favourite, Nightwatch with Steve Scott (ITV 1) which seems to go big on any footage it gets its hands on.
Every single one of those programmes appeare in primetime TV - other than Steve Scott, but that's on a Friday night at midnight so pretty much is primetime as it's the weekend.
I watched one of the above this week. If CCTV Cities (Mon, 10pm, Five) proved one thing, it's that with so many cameras following the cops, exaggerating the truth is top of the list.
On Monday, CCTV Cities followed police in Blackburn on what is apparently known as "Mad Friday" - the Friday before Christmas when everyone goes out in Blackburn. It was described as "Mad Friday" by one of the cops they followed in that sort of knowing way which a child will tell his friend not to talk to the one-eyed old woman because she's "Scary Mildrid."
As trouble occurred around the town, including an incident involving a swearing hoodie - honestly, at the end they actually referred to him as the "swearing hoodie" - a CCTV operative is watching it all on the 90 cameras dotted around Blackburn.
Amusingly, while he was busy watching a fight he missed someone lobbing a brick through the window of Bar Ibiza (honestly, it's nothing like Ibiza). He then tried to redeem himself by looking at other cameras in the area, hoping to have got a shot of it. The viewer (me) was then told: "If he is filmed in the act, it's pretty much done and dusted in court." You don't say.
Then back in Blackburn town centre, a fight had broken out in a pub. One PC, obviously dizzy with the thought of being on telly, even if they can't get Five in Blackburn, said: "It's like the wild west out there." No, mate, it's not. It's not even like Frontierland.
But putting aside this desperate desire for cops to look good on telly, and in some cases opening their mouths and letting anything fall out, is the fact that this programme beared no resembelance to a regular night out in Blackburn. The normal complaint about a night out in Blackburn is that next to no-one goes out in Blackburn other than to one club, because the pubs in the town centre are so naff.
Yet to watch this programme, you'd think vandalism was rife, that Blackburn was a dangerous no-man's land which only the brave cops can keep from anarchy. But then look at the TV blurb in the Mail on Sunday: "A suspected troublemaker makes an offensive gesture to the police." By god, call in the riot cops now.
Blackburn has its problems, but it's not a nasty nightlife. It's also not a city, so why it is on CCTV Cities, I don't know. Perhaps other camera crews had beaten Channel 5 to Manchester, Liverpool and London. Damn their determination
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