Strictly Lady Sumo

By all that's holy. Did I really see a trailer for this or was I shaking off the effects of last night's precocious little Chablis?

Are C4 really going to give us a prime time show about fat aggressive women who we don't know doing something we don't care about?

Absolute genius. Because if it was a show about naked supermodels wrestling in jello [watch my visitor count spike] then that would have been rank exploitation.

I'm guessing that the number of viewers getting a woody by watching over weight women fight it out in a circle has already been tested in various focus groups and the lawyers have cleared it as being a number of so little significance that not even the most prurient tabloid could make the claim that the show was about exploitation. There is a massive difference between a freak show and exploitation.

And okay this may sound a little sexist here, but I'm talking on medical grounds. Women are not supposed to be 30 stone wrestlers. The average life expectancy of Japanese Sumo wrestler is 10 years, yes 10 years less than the average Japanese. Many suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure. In short, it is not a healthy sport!

Apparently these women are going to be trained up to fight in the Ladies Sumo World Championship or something. Now, I don't care what platitudes the programme makers come out with about medical supervision. In the Sumo world, weight is an advantage. And in order to compete these women will want to and have to put on even more weight.

Sure, they might be fitter, but tell that to the Japanese Sumo dieing at 65. Why not train them up for the world javellin championship?

Call me old fashioned but I don't consider taking a bunch of obese women and getting them to knock seven bells out of each other as edification and entertainment. And just wait til you hear C4 claim it is all about empowerment.

Of course some C4 exec is congratulating himself that he's got this great lead in to Desperate Housewives.

I'm going to pitch my reality show lead in to Shameless. You take a bunch of teetotallers, force feed them alcohol and last one to get Delirium Tremens wins.

Enough with the reality shows already. Has C4 not learned it's lesson with that crappy thing in the bunker with a million quid at stake? NOBODY CARED.

Ballet Changed my Life. NOBODY CARED.

Love Island. NOBODY CARED.

Survivor. NOBODY CARED

And on and on with the imports. Beauty and the Geek, Joe Millionaire, Anna Nicole.

When you think about it, out of the seemingly hundreds of reality shows that have been thrown at us only a trickle have been anywhere near ''successful'' and I don't include Pop Idol which I consider to be a talent show.

And yet on and on they come in a never ending procession of desperate wannabes in search of their 15 minutes on shows created by desperate producers with desperate ideas.

Last night, 5 Days, the new BBC Drama got nearly 7 million viewers. Waking The Dead regularly tops 7 million. Hell, even Casualty and Holby do that. And that is a whole lot better than most reality shows with the exception of Celebrity Big Brother and I'm a Celebrity Get me Out of here.
It's time for execs to stop blaming ' audience fragmentation' for their failing ratings and take a look at their programming.