JARVIS RULES

We wish we could say it was something more pressing which meant we didn't catch Jarvis Cocker's TV Pop Rules until last night, but it probably wasn't. Channel 4's invitation to get El Jarvo (as, of course, we're forced to call him) to run through what makes a good pop TV show was half-inspired, but we'd still much rather have seen them get him to make a proper TV pop programme rather than a show about the shows.

And while there was a lot of stuff we've seen so many times before (Tony Wilson talking about the Pistols on So It Goes; Pans People dancing with disinterested dogs) this was balanced with some clippage that we hadn't seen - some scary Yorkshire TV hybrid between Rockschool and Bob Ross, with an audience full of the sort of pensionners always used as a fallback by a researcher with a beacher or two to fill suddenly being given guitars and encouraged to "play pop".

A couple of the rules were just plain wrong. Under no circumstances, Jarvis, should you get Saville in - although you deserve a mark of respect for being the only person to interview him recently who left the man with some dignity; after Theroux's depcition of the first TOTP presenter as a quasi-tramp it's a wonder Jimmy let anyone into his house with a camera ever again.

It's also great that Cocker found a positive note to go out on - The Streets 2005 Brit Awards performance as a sign that pop TV still has life in it. Of course, with TOTP only a few minutes now from slinking off to a new life battling with Antiques Roadshow, the point was double-edged - there's very, very little prime time pop at all now and the Brits Awards is one of the few times you'll see proper singers on the two main channels during peak hours. The slots on shows like Wogan have more or less dried up; the weeknight chart show has all but vanished; even Channel 4 would rather not do pop while the audience was awake anymore, preferring anything - even shows like this - to actually offering pop. Later once again lives up to its name. We'd like to see someone come up with an idea that would get people excited about watching music TV with their dinners in their laps again - clearly, people are happy to watch stuff like Stars In Their Eyes and Pop Idol. Can't anyone come up with a format that would spark people's interests in actual, proper bands?

music jarvis cocker tv