Who's the daddy? Big Daddy floors prime adversary Giant Haystacks. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
The tentative revival of ITV has already been remarked upon. Whether Michael Grade's stewardship is already kicking in, or whether it was in motion anyway is a moot point. However, a station once considered to be suffering death by the thousand darts of satellite channels, the helpless plaything of the Branson-Murdoch dispute, now seems to be improving at the same, slow but inexorable rate at which Channel 4 is deteriorating.
Al Murray's Happy Hour may have finished but it gives way to Dame Edna. Both are extremely cleverly wrought comic creations whose broad, almost music hall-derived mirth makes ITV their natural home.
Indeed, the return of Dame Edna indicates an ITV returning to the sort of thing it's best at. They've revived Saturday night boxing, a huge ratings winner back in the late 80s and early 90s, with millions sitting up to watch with unabated relish even when two men (Michael Watson and Gerald McClellan) were almost beaten to death before their square eyes. There are also dramas like Cold Blood and Mobile, which, though daftly self important, are still highly watchable.
Not all of this is exactly what the doctor ordered, but then ITV was never meant to be overly nutritious. It was the Chips Channel, Ketchup TV. It was Saturday afternoon watching two middle aged men in boots and saggy swimming trunks bending each others' fingers back. It was On The Buses, it was the soaps, the sports, the drunken newscasters - good, plain, working man's fare.
ITV is stirring again but there is still work to be done. Next, must come the soaps. Coronation Street was once the UK's finest sitcom, in the heyday of Derek and Mavis, Jack and Vera, Curly and Reg. Then, it got sucked into the maelstrom of misery initiated by EastEnders. Emmerdale once had the glorious Amos Brearley; now it's running an interactive murder storyline. Both soaps are too guilty of trying to woo the already over-pampered, over-wooed youth market. This must stop. Emmerdale must get the scent of manure back in its nostrils. Corrie's producers must commission a large juggernaut stuffed with £20 notes to drive round to Peter Kay's house and persuade him to revive his one-off bit as the drayman on a permanent basis.
After that, bring back the wrestling. There must be dozens of fat old men who could be persuaded, at £50 a fight, to don ill-fitting singlets and run into each other belly first, for our entertainment. But perhaps not On The Buses. Reg Varney turns 91 this year, his days as a convincing Lothario surely almost over.
