The BBC's big autumn search for someone to who can sing a bit, play a bit, and write a bit came to an end on Friday. Why am I still so unhappy with the whole affair?
It's not actually the people on display. The last few contestants were very good indeed, and had clearly come on in leaps and bounds during their time away. I don't think the BBC1 shows reflected this as well as they might. However, the judges were distant and remote from the competitors, stuck up their on their raised balcony. They didn't seem prepared to admit their manifest errors of judgement.
I wish all thirteen contestants well; most of them will need a dollop of luck on top of their talent to rise above the damage this show has done to their careers. Which leads me to wonder why this show has left a really bad taste in my mouth.
The show was always played very safe, very middle of the road. There was never any element of risk-taking, and never any serious challenge to the woeful decisions announced by Richard Park. The whole thing felt sterile, and not conducive to inspired work.
I think the casting of Mr Park as chief judge was a bad one. His experience has been in radio, at the stage where mass-market product is consumed; not at the creative stage where it is made. To pluck a name out of other BBC staffers, perhaps Tom Robinson could have taken the job.
I've compared and contrasted the UK edition with the Belgian one previously; it suffices to repeat that [whatever] ACADEMY can be a great format, but it has to be done with care and sensitivity.
Ultimately, I still don't think that this show was the right thing for the BBC to be doing. Compare it against the original standards of Lord Reith: does it inform? Not really. Does it educate? Not particularly. Does it entertain? If it doesn't, there's no purpose to the show. Add in Greg Dyke's extra principle: does the show innovate? That's a certain no.
Rightly or wrongly, the show has gone ahead. Rightly or wrongly, the BBC has provided almost 24 hours of free prime-time publicity to launch winner David's career in particular, and to Mercury Records in general. The BBC name still carries a strong cachet of responsibility and respectability - perhaps this fed back into the anodyne format, but it will certainly benefit David, Sinead, Ainslie, and any other spin-off acts.
As a license-fee payer, I have to wonder if the BBC has invested my money wisely. The ACADEMY format was rejected by Channel 4, and bears striking similarities to ITV productions. It's not sufficiently distinctive from the commercial sector rivals.
I'm reminded of the furore that surrounded INTERCEPTOR when it first aired in 1989. Many critics dismissed it as a tawdry show, unsuitable for a network with a public service ethos. Thirteen years later, there's been no objection to the tax-funded corporation donating huge amounts of resources to a private company.
This is the way broadcasting in general, and society in particular, has changed. I don't have to like it. I'm at liberty to protest against it, and this short essay marks my displeasure at the development.
I do, however, repeat my best wishes to all the contestants. Judge them on what they are, not from where they've come.
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