I hate ITV. I hate everything about it; the lousy, predictable crime dramas. The lousy, predictable talent shows. The lousy, predictable daytime “human interest” talk shows. But most of all, I hate it when they decide to try their hand at music programming. Some of the problems they have are not their fault, per se. On the few occasions they’ve tried festival coverage, it has been incredibly minimal and repetitive. But that’s due to the difficulty they have in acquiring those sorts of rights (unlike the BBC, who have always had a deal with the musician’s union). But they have no excuse for their “documentary” programmes.
I put the word “documentary” in quotation marks because these aren’t really “documentaries”, they’re clip shows. The two most recent ones I can think of is a documentary on Pete Waterman’s Hit Factory and the genesis of the Now That‘s What I Call Music compilations (the subject matters should tell you enough). Do you want to hear what you’ve just been watching said again and again? Great! Because they’ll do it after every ad break, as if you’re an imbecile with an inability to remember what happened 3 minutes ago. Do you want to see Simon Cowell treated as the go-to guy and God of all that is important in music? Great! Because that’s exactly what you’ll get, and not at all because he produces the two cornerstones of their schedule! Do you want to know what Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street thinks about Bananarama? You do! Excellent…then this is the “documentary” for you. Because, like all ITV shows, what’s the point in having something on your channel, if you can’t promote the rest of your schedule while you’re at it? (That’s actually a trick ITV do all the time; look out for it next time you watch Ant & Dec, or if they do a documentary on the Moors Murders and Peter Andre is one of their interview subjects).
They’ve had a series running called The Nation’s Favourite…. Each time they wheel it out, a different beloved music icon (Abba, the Bee Gees, Elvis, Christmas) is subject to a public vote as to what the nation’s favourite song by that artiste. And by “nation”, of course, I mean X Factor viewers.
I actually watched the Elvis one last year, and was a little taken aback. Here’s what I couldn’t understand; they interviewed Elvis’ wife Priscilla, they interviewed his buddies in the Memphis Mafia, they interviewed members of his band, they interviewed the great Darlene Love (who was, for a time, one of his backing singers), they interviewed his producers…you name it. So why, oh why, did they feel the need to spend an entire segment interviewing Gareth Gates (who was famous 12 years ago) about singing an Elvis song once? Who gives a fuck? Tell us how the songs were written. Tell us Elvis stories. NO-ONE GIVES A TOSS ABOUT GARETH GATES. His mum probably even refers to him as That One From Pop Idol. No, Not Will Young.
So, it’s with great sadness that ITV have announced that this summer they will tackle one of the subjects dearest to my heart; Motown. I assume this tribute to the greatest record label that ever existed is an overdue apology to label founder Berry Gordy, whom Louis Walsh once declared dead rather prematurely on The X Factor back in 2011 (seriously, an expert judge on a supposed music show, folks). I do remember ITV dealing with Motown before, on a special presented by Ian Wright called Motown Mania. It had S Club 7, Dane Bowers, Steps, A1, something called a “Samantha Mumba”. This is the basic, soulless standard;
Yes, it’s ITV’s favourite, Westlife. And it appears they are trying to summon Satan by being bland, boring and showing about as much emotion as a spatula. Not even an emotional spatula. Just a boring fucking spatula
Anywho, the company producing this new special is appropriately named Shiver, and the press release tells us that they are responsible for hard-hitting documentary series, and then has the BALLS to list Paul O’ Grady: For The Love of Dogs, May The Best House Win and Come Dine With Me as being amongst their most popular and respected long-running shows. These things? Really? So, not responsible for BBC Four’s Britannia series? Or some of Sky Art’s excellent interview series? No? Just May The Best House Win, then. In fairness, they did list The Other Side of Jimmy Saville in there too, but that was the only thing that could be seen as hard-hitting. And even that essentially picked up where an unaired Newsnight investigation dropped off.
This is going to be seriously bad. And yet I won’t be able to look away. I can’t help it. I’m drawn to anything with the word “Motown” on it. But, I can take solace in the fact that, no matter how much they rush through interviews with Smokey Robinson, no matter how many times it repeats itself, no matter how predictable the whole shebang might be…at least I might find out what Deirdre Barlow from Coronation Street thought when Diana Ross left The Supremes.
