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The Gong Shows

by | 27th, February 2006

‘KEN Dodd should get the nod to present next year’s Brit Awards.

One thing you can always say about the septuagenarian comic is that if hours spent on stage equates to entertainment, Dodd’s shows offer real and lasting value.

This year’s Brits were on TV for 2½ hours. Long? Not long enough. As any one who has been privileged to attend one of Dodd’s shows knows, this is a mere preamble. It takes Dodd a couple of hours to warm up – and there’s no guarantee that he ever will glow hot.

Dodd’s audiences may be aged, but when you’re faced with an endurance test, wise is the pensioner who takes long their own colostomy bag and urine bottle.

The only danger is that the aged rock stars waiting in the wings to shamble on stage and collect those lifetime achievement awards may become permanently unplugged and die during Dodd’s tales of tax avoidance and tickling sticks.

If not the Brits, then what about Dodd presenting the Grammys? This awards do surely represents the old stager’s chance to crack America.

This year’s Grammy awards show featured – a roll on the drums please (with award for Best Drum Roll In An Anorak Article to follow) – 108 awards! That’s a number that demands stamina. American TV only broadcast 11 of the prize givings, but that’s because America doesn’t have a Dodd, not since George Burns died.

Oddly, Dodd has been overlooked for this year’s Academy Awards. The Oscars are to be introduced by Jon Stewart, a comic whose satirical news show has been a bit hit over there.

Stewart is following in the choppy wake of Chris Rock, another teller of jokes, who presented last year’s show. Rock oversaw a programme that lost 5per cent of it viewers on the year. The Times says advertisers’ fear Stewart will help take the audience down from 2005’s 41 million to 30 million.

And the Oscars are not the only luvvie-in losing audiences. The Times says the Brits attracted 4.5 million viewers, down from 7 million in 2005. And just 3 million of us tuned in to see Stephen Fry and the best of British thespian talent smug it up in the Baftas – that figure down from 4.4 million last year and 5.7 million in 2004.

Might it be that viewers are growing tired of seeing these glorified entertainment industry AGMs?

Let’s take a look at the numbers. Ceremonies broadcast on TV in 2005-2006 attracted the following audiences (listed here in order of highest viewing figures to lowest): British Soap Awards, National TV Awards, Pride of Britain, Comedy Awards, Sports Personality of the Year Awards, The Brits Awards, Bafta Awards, Bafta Film Awards, Political Awards and Teaching Awards.

Too much? For most of us, yes. But not for Ken Dodd. Don’t give him an endurance award – just give him the job…’



Posted: 27th, February 2006 | In: Celebrities Comment | TrackBack | Permalink