I hate ITV

For those not in the know (yeah, both of you), there are two categories of TV users in Britain. There are the rich bastards, and there are the cheapskates.

The rich bastards have Sky, Freeview, Tivo, whatever, satellite dishes mounted on the sides of their houses, cables into the tv, all manner of black boxes covered in buttons on their televisions, and about 6 remote controls. This is important. You must have one control for every different black box, then another fancy one to control all of them, then another miscellaneous one for the stereo in the kitchen that's somehow made its way into the living room.

When you turn on the tv of a rich bastard, you don't get a program. Instead, you get a purple box showing you a list of programs that you've pre-selected, a schedule of lists for the next four decades of programming, and also a full list of the one hundred and twenty thousand different channels that you may wish to view. And, to be honest, they usually end up watching MTV. Thus is the lot of the rich bastards.

Then you get the cheapskates. The cheapskates have the standard, bottom of the barrel selection of programming, that which is zoomed through the air as opposed to being pumped through the ground, beamed from space, or carried by pixies. What does this mean? Five channels. Five bloody channels. Cheapskates habitually only have one, battered remote control, with the buttons for 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 worn down and broken, with the remaining five (and the rest of the assorted buttons... seriously... is there anybody out there who uses every button on their remote control?) totally spotless.

For future reference, I am a cheapskate. And very happy I am with my cheapskatedness.

The standard of programming on the Cheapskate method, however, is pretty good. If you flick around, you're bound to find at least something that's good. Here's a rundown of the stations, in decending order of how much I like them:

4: Yes, controversial, the new boy on the block manages to beat both BBC Channels, just through the honour of holding the all important 'cool' tag. Yes, if there's anything important going on in the world (Pope's dead, tall building in America falling over, Dalai Lama catching fire) you'll wanna watch the Beeb (meaning the BBC... the Beeb is not a currents event program), but, come on, 4 has The Simpsons. Also has wicked films.
BBC 1: The Big Daddy. BBC 1 is where the quality, high brow stuff pops up. Also has the most expensive films and some pretty sickhead news coverage, if you like that sort of thing.
BBC 2: Now they've lost The Simpsons, not as good as BBC1, but still a dumping ground for quality...
Channel 5: Unlike Channel 5. The most recent channel, this entire station has a reek of church jumble sale tackyness to it, and no matter how cool the subject matter they present, it always looks a bit seedy. They used to show really lame softcore porn 'thrillers' (usually involving a beautiful woman looking worried about her husband's death and then having sex with the lawyer who, amazingly, has a log fireplace with a bearskin rug in front of it) and really shitty reality TV. Still, they now have CSI, which drags it up a few points. Not that it was ever in any danger of being eclipsed in quality by...
ITV: Like a wannabe BBC, but without enough money/quality/love. Like God decided to make a new sort of baby that was even better than a human, but instead made a retard with teeth growing out of its eyelids and a rat's tail cos, you know, they look good.

And now I get onto the point of this post: I Hate ITV
So much. Here's why:

7 Reasons why I hate ITV

7: Drama
Christ. Literally all they show is drama, interspersed with crap (I'll get to the crap presently). And the drama is always some attempt at some really cool, dark issue, usually involving:

a: A sexy police(wo)man with a gritty voice in long gritty trenchcoat (trenchcoats are always cool) solving a gritty crime with the help of a junior officer of the opposite sex or
b: A bunch of women going through some sort of crisis (more on ITV's obsession with women later), probably caused by men or
c: Chavs doing chavvish things or
d: A mother/father going through some sort of crisis involving their fit (but not really) teenage daughter or
e: Somebody going through a 'real issue' of the day

They usually have really COOL nonsensical names like "The Secret" or "The Dark" or "Burning Shield," especially if the drama has nothing to do with burning shields. Well done ITV, now if some visionary actually makes a story about a shield that's on fire they'll have to give it some lame non-related title like 'The Dove' and then when somebody makes a drama about a dove... you get my point.
These dramas (usually two parts) usually star James Nesbitt or Ray Winstone. And they are always marketed with the tagline of being 'gritty'. Seriously, how gritty can you get? They should just advertise a drama as being 'the most gritty ever' then just have a half hour shot of a beach. Ha, that'll teach you. And you know what the sad thing is? People will watch it just the same, assuming that its some sort of establishing shot.

6: Accents
Every female on ITV has a stupid country accent. Now I don't mind cool accents (like that crazy guy on FAQ U or, uh, a russian, or pakistan females) but country accents make me want to hurt things. It's as though, to be allowed to work for ITV, you must be a Cilla Black impersonator. Chuck. Eugh. This disgusts me so much, I can't even write any more.

5: The Format
Sheesh. Who told the guys at ITV that blue and yellow was a good format idea? Not me. Why didn't I? Because IT ISN'T. Every time I turn onto ITV (admittedly, this is roughly once every two weeks) that fucking blue/yellow (a colour which I have now named yelue, just to speed up the typing) box is bouncing about, telling me what's on and what's going on. Its rediculous. Here's an example (the box doesn't actually speak, this is just what's written on it... moron)

A program is progressing
Suddenly, a yelue box slides onscreen from the right, blocking out half the screen
Yelue box: Tune in next for Celebrity Housewives from Hell 8!
Advert
Yelue box flashes on screen for a quarter of a second
Advert
Yelue box flashes on screen for a quarter of a second
Advert
Yelue box flashes on screen for a quarter of a second
Advert
Yelue box slides down from the top
Yelue box: Now its time for Celebrity Housewives from Hell 8!
Program starts
Yelue box slides in from the right
Yelue box: Next on ITV
Yelue box slides in from the left
Yelue box: The News

And it continues. I was watching a football match yesterday. Well, not really, I sort of passed it as I pressed the 'channel up' button on the clicker (yes, I still call the remote a 'clicker', I realise this makes me sound like Dot Cotton from Eastenders, shut up) and the amount of yelue boxes zooming around the screen... christ. ITV is more over-formatted than the European Song Contest. That wasn't a joke; I geniuinely think that the Eurovision Song Contest is over-formatted. Bloody Eurotrash.

4: Reality TV
Reality TV sucks. But it sucks especially on ITV. You know why? Because they just rip off ideas from everyone else. As soon as something becomes popular on another station, ITV produce a crappy homegrown stupid accented version of it. They usually insert some shit celebs and then BAM we have the latest hit. Or not, as the case may be.
Do you know the best news I've heard ALL MONTH? That the most recent ITV show, Celebrity Orgy Love Fest Island or whatever, sank like a stone. A STONE. You faiiiiiiled, ITV. You suckkkkk. Go and cry to yo mamaaaaaaa.

Celebrity Love Island... what a fucking travesty of an idea that was. The only thing you can really say is that hey, at least ITV realised what pigs their audience are and realised, hey, if we shoot for the lowest common demonimator we have SOME guaranteed audience. But seriously, who comes up with this stuff? Christ, I could make up a better reality tv show than placing some celebrities on an island and then, like, hoping they have sex. Ok, off the top of my head, here goes:

Celebrity Lesbian Chosing of Death
Ok, so you have these, uh, 18 people all locked in a castle. Right, they're all beautiful women except for this one really pug-ugly man. Right, and one of the women is straight and the others are gay and he has to choose the straight one. BUT BUT BUT he's been told that half of them are gay and the other half straight and then he has to choose the one that's actually a man in drag, while the rest of the women are told that if he chooses them they DIE so they all have to act as lesbian as possible (wearing hiking boots, not shaving, not being fit, that sort of thing...) to win the grand high prize... LIFE. Did I say that anybody who lost (and losing would be a totally random occurence, but nobody would know this because nobody would have a clue of how the rules work) would be thrown off the tallest tower? Well, I did now. The aim of my show is that its so confusing, nobody knows what the hell is going on. And random yelue boxes would appear and give magic pills to people whenever I felt like it. That show would rule, man.

3: Ad Breaks
I don't really have anything against ad breaks. Both 4 and Channel 5 have them, and they provide a good oppurtunity to go and have a piss. In fact, the lack of ad breaks is a major downer on watching films on the BBC. Does that make me shallow? Oh well, I don't care.
But for some reason, ad breaks are just so much more annoying on ITV. Perhaps because everything is just a lot more annoying on ITV. ITV is like the mecca of annoying. Annoying prays to ITV and makes pilgrimiges there every year and build holy walls there. Or perhaps the reason they're so annoying is because they happen at a rate of like 20 an hour. Or perhaps the reason they are so irritating is that THEY PLAY THAT DAMN CRAZY FROG RINGTONE THING TWICE... EVERY... BREAK. Why do I know this? I don't watch ITV. I hate ITV. But yet, ITV has managed to annoy the hell out of me. I think its crapness has finally manage to diffuse across the boundary between channels and poison my mind from over on BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV diffuses. Like a turd. Yes, that's a good description of ITV. The worlds biggest turd in the a paddling pool of televisual programming.

2: Celebrities
Too many F-List celebs. And, like annoying, they sort of magnetise towards ITV. Like flies to the aforementioned excrement. Then ITV pretend that they're interesting and make shows about them. Why? Is there anyone who actively likes these people? Is there somebody out where who turns on the tv HOPING to see Quentin Wilson?
The latest amazing ITV celebrity idea is this dumbass show called 'Have I been here Before?' in which they get the worlds most annoying woman to hypnotise F-Listers and then get them to talk about their past lives. And AMAZINGLY, they've all had fascinating past lives. Now, a few things to take into account with this show:

a: Nobody Cares. Double capital. Remember that, it's my number 1 rule of everything. Nobody Cares.
b: All this past life stuff is bullshit. As well as psycics, ghosts, pixies, and Uri Gellar.
c: How come all these celebs have had really fascinating past lives? Is this just to make up for the fact that they've got such godawful boring present ones? Or could it be that hypnosis is rubbish, as is past lives, and the only reason this show is on tv is to give that fat breakfast DJ something to do? And anyway, how come everyone always has a past life in which something interesting happens... why don't we ever hear stories about somebody going to church every day then dying of the clap at the age of 32? I don't know.

1: Women's Issues
Seriously, ITV should rename itself FTV, and have the title font in pink handwrity stuff. Everything on that channel is so blatantly marketed at women. But not young fit single women. Old fat ugly women. You know the sort. Those chavvish old ladies who are now slightly past their prime, smoking ciggies, doing the latest fad diet which they'll fail, dying their hair to try and keep some essence of youth and avoiding the fact that they are rapidly going off by drinking massively and referring to themselves as 'girls'. Ugh, you make me sick. And ITV SUCKS UP TO THESE PEOPLE AND oh my god that put such a horrid image in my head.

EUGH.

So this basically means that we have programs about old ladies going through the menopause, women's chat shows, and, my personal favourite, programs about fat women trying to lose weight. These women are always whingeing about being fat, while doing nothing about it, and what does ITV do? Nothing. In fact they make these Moby Dicks look like heros for being fat. Newsflash: Nobody cares. Second Newsflash: You're not 'a real person', you're not 'yourself', you're a big fatso. Thin people aren't 'imaginary' - stop pretending that people with a decent level of fitness are make believe.
If I see one more ITV drama about fat women going through the menopause, possibly with endless male-bashing, I swear I'm going to eat something really sharp.

Basically, ITV is a giant vagina of a station that spends its time sucking up to women and selling tampons. Anybody who watches it deserves a slap.

Bloody ITV.

Lets just do an experiment. I am going to press the button '3' on the remote, and we'll see whats on. I BET YOU it breaks one of these rules. WELL OH LOOK. Celebrity Love Island. I think that breaks rules numbers 6, 4, and 2. And as it has highly oiled men arm wrestling, and I can't see men enjoying that, I vote that 1 is broken. And if I watch long enough, a box will pop up. There we go. And we just had an ad break. So thats pretty much ALL OF THEM.
Go on, turn on ITV. See how many rules it breaks. Then turn off again, quick, lest you be corrupted by its tackyness.And now, time for a hilarious pun.

ITV? shITV more like! Mwaha. And we laughed so hard. Look, it works if you take out the V, ok? I've been typing this for an hour, give me a break.

Screw this, my hands are starting to lock up.