Zapsmart: Music on TV and Radio today

10.40am BBC2 - Who Do You Think You Are?
Rory Bremner. He had a hit record as The Commentators. He counts.



God, the pickings are so, so slim this week.

11.05am Channel 4 - Lily Allen: Under The Skin
Unless she changes her mind, wipes the tapes and pretends she never really meant to make the programme in the first place.

Noon Radio 1 - Arctic Monkeys Live
From August 2009, so you can almost hear the first little voice in the crowd saying 'I think maybe they've spread themselves too thinly...'

1.00 Radio 1 - The Chart Of The Decade
For some reason, chopped into three daily chunks instead of being delivered in a single, magisterial, all-day, schedule sweeping gesture. If Radio 1 don't think it's worth a bit of fuss, why should we?

3.10 BBC2 - Ready Steady Cook
Toyah Wilcox cooks up something against the clock. The Thunder In The Mountains calls for a Rennie half an hour later.

6.00 Radio 2 - The Class Of 2009
Paul Gambaccini picks the best new artists of the year, and his choice should be enough to shut the Radio Centre's claims that Radio 2 is obsessed with young people and popularity right out the water.

8.00 BBC4 - Electric Dreams
Open University-tastic domestic electronics history 101 gets a rerun; tonight, it's the 1980s, which means there's a guest appearance from those members of Ultravox who don't get asked to make circus school documentaries for Radio 4.

9.00 Five - Celebrity Shock List
Seriously, who exactly is shocked by Lady GaGa? Entertained - briefly - maybe. But shocked?

10.20 Channel 4 - Alan Carr: Chatty Man Special
So, Channel 4 seem to have given up looking for a proper vehicle for Carr's talents and are just going to churn this out, over and over. Still, anything that spares us another series of Ding Dong. Spandau Ballet shuffle by, trying to avoid catching anyone's eyes.

10.50 BBC1 - Sting's Winter Songbook
Billed merely to reassure you that you're better off hanging out until last orders.

11.00 Discovery Real Time - LA Ink
The Game visits Kat Von D's tattoo shop. Even less happens than you might expect.

11.30 BBC Radio 7 - Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World
Stuart Lee and Richard Herring from 1992. In passing, it's worth noting that the Fist Of Fun wikipedia entry calls for a citation on the claim that the fake Rod Hull would believe the real Rod Hull would require gifts of jelly.

11.45 ITV2 - Ghosthunting With Louis Walsh And Boyzone
From, you know, before the very set-up of the programme started to sound like a bad joke