Content area
Full Text
FAQ U
Channel 4
Life Isn't All Ha Ha Hee Hee
BBC 1
How Art Made the World
BBC 2
It's tough, but I think I have a winner in the race to be the most destructive kind of pseudo-scientist. It's the demographer. You know, those clipboard-wielding drivel-spouters who insist on dividing us all up into neatly-packaged groups. They have got a real hold on the programme commissioners right now, so that shows are increasingly being made and packaged to appeal to one highly desired group or another. Just as the demographers' rapacious hold has steered politicians into making bland speeches, targeted specifically at Volvo-owning over-70s or whatever, so producers are churning out anodyne fare designed specifically to appeal to ever- more tightly drawn demographics.
It's the programmes aimed at the 16 to 35-year-olds that are the worst. First we had the dreadful Weekend with Rod Liddle. Then Channel 4 got in on the crappy act, with the forgettable Girls and Boys and the unforgettable (for all the wrong reasons) Friday Night Project. These shows may have been awful, but at least they were only on once a week. That clearly wasn't enough, so the BBC hit back with the utterly feeble Dick and Dom's Ask the Family, stripped across every weekday evening. Five-times-weekly tosh! Responding to the challenge, this week Channel 4 continued the horrendous catalogue, with FAQ U, Monday to Friday at 11pm.
FAQ U " 'hilariously' pronounced 'fack you' " takes an untalented host, Justin Lee...