It’s that time again, the Edinburgh TV Festival is upon us, and has got off to a cracking start with the sacking of ITV director of television Simon Shaps.
Now before you all get over excited, and trust me there are a fair few folk out there that would, I am of course talking about the television executive version of BBC2 hit The Apprentice.
After last year’s cringetastic revamp of Strictly Come Dancing, a whole new range of industry supremos, including Simon Shaps, Tiger Aspect’s Andrew Zein, Channel 4’s Andrew Newman, Beeb boss Jana Bennett and former BBC1 controller Peter Salmon.
All in the style of the tradition television show, complete with smug commentary and brutal putdowns, the team, which were split by gender, had to sell products on shopping channel QVC.
It was painful. Probably the highlight was Zein and Salmon attempting to sell a hoover, neither having a clue how to use and essentially just pushing the dirt around. Shaps was in the back room attempting to give some form of direction. It was futile. By the time the pair announced:
Your cleaner will love this
The writing was on the wall. Come on guys, it’s QVC, you work in television. For Christ’s sake know your audience.
Rather predictably when it came to the showdown in the boardroom the boys lost out. It was a terribly middle class display of mutual backpacking and appreciation, but Sugar was having none of it, by the end announcing, with what some would argue was uncanny insight or clever editing, that Shaps seemed like the type that would hide in the bushes while all the shit hit the fan, before the inevitable:
Simon, you’re fired!
