Holy Cowell! It's the Whinger! no comments

Simon Cowell is hogging the front pages these days by whining about the "ridiculous and unfair" ratings war launched by the BBC.

Apparently it's unfair to the viewers to make them choose one program over the other.

Excuse me, but when I was young(er) we had this thing called a "video recorder" which enabled you to "record" one program whilst watching another. When it had finished you could then watch the other at your leisure.

So why in the age of DVD recorders, watch again, iplayer and pausible cable boxes is this suddenly a big deal again?

The answer is as simple as it is obvious: if you watch the program an hour later the voting is closed, halving the amount of revenue pouring through the phone lines. Unfair to Simon's bank balance more likely.

Aside from that, when did ITV ever shirk from the ratings battle?

Only when they didn't think they would win!