Loveable Rogues no longer on Syco

Ah, the end of one of the great partnerships off our time: Loveable Rogues have been waved off by Syco:

Speaking to Jon Hornbuckle for Digital Spy, the band put the reason behind the split down to a conflict of ideas about the direction the group should take, but insisted they had parted with the Sony imprint on "good terms".

They said: "It didn't really work. We had different plans to what Syco had for us. It's different for them because we ended on good terms with them and they're not really used to that!"

It's not entirely clear what the different plans the band and Syco had, although the smart money is on Syco planning to wait until people had forgotten the band ever existed before quietly dropping them from the roster. And the band didn't have the being forgotten part of the plan.

It's odd that coming fourth in a TV talent with just over one-twentieth of the public vote hasn't led to anything apart from a solitary single. Whoever would have thought?

Gordon in the morning: Britain's Next Top Bad Idea

Ah, poor Gordon, pressed into duty to try and promote one of his guv'nors other properties. Today, he's struggling to spark interest in a judging change on Britain And Ireland's Next Top Model.

The last series was rotten - random prizes based on who'd pony up for product placement made the 'what you'll win' sequence look like a table at a well-resourced church tombola night; the addition of Fearne Cotton and endless episodes of casting dragged things down; and a production team blithely slapping whatever happened to be in the Top 10 six months ago over the top conspired to make this look like a franchise whose time is up.

But Sky Living doesn't have much local programming, so instead of quietly letting the beast die, it's going to have a revamp. A desperate revamp.

How desperate? Bizarre scribblebot Colin Robertson reveals the full horror:

WILD child Kelly Osbourne is bouncing back on to UK telly — as a judge on Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model.

Really?

A source "explains":

"The plan is for Kelly to come on board and shake things up. She is a massive fan of fashion and has good pedigree working on fashion shows."

That's true, if by "good pedigree" you mean "squeezed the air out of the British version of Project Runway so badly a can't-fail format stuttered out after two botched series".

"Crucially, she is also young and the whole point of the show is to find the next big thing."

Now, without wanting to sound cruel, this suggests the sole thing Kelly has going for her is being "young" - although one of the judges she's replacing, Charley Speed, is only five years older than Kelly, making her closer to the "old" being replaced than the would-be models she's judging.

But the idea that "Kelly Osborne", who has been cluttering up showbusiness looking for a role since 2002, somehow reflects "the next big thing" rather than "the last number in the contact book" is amusing. Perhaps the series is going to try and save itself through post-modernism?

Gordon in the morning: Model home

Oddly, Gordon is leading this morning on a story about Britain And Ireland's Next Top Model. Sure, it has a tangental link to JLS, but I don't recall ever having seen BINTM getting such prominence in Bizarre ever before.

Could it be because Jade Thompson, this cycle's winner, is far more interesting than any of the previous winners?

"I wanted to say hello when the band came off stage because he [Ortise]'s a nice bloke and I haven't met him in person yet. But I'm really loved up with my man."

Hardly.

Could it be because the most recent series was the first one to broadcast on Living after its acquisition by Sky?

Johnny Vaughan's Next Top Model

We're given to understand the press release for this story came with the words "we give it six months" written in invisible ink all over it: Lisa Snowdon is to co-present Capital's breakfast show.

We say co-present; that would imply some sort of interaction and chemistry between Johnny Vaughan and her.

Vaughan has put together some sort of statement:

"I'm delighted to have Lisa as my new co-host. Her enthusiasm for her new role is self-evident and she's a natural behind the mic. Lisa is a great addition to the Capital breakfast show."

Which, Global GCap executives agree, is saying all the right things. Even if there's nothing there to make the casual listener think "wow - that sounds like a double act I can't miss..."

Snowdon:

"I couldn't think of a better way to start the day than with Mr Vaughan and the breakfast gang. He keeps me on my toes and has me in stitches for the whole four hours.

"I have grown up with Capital and having the opportunity to work with Johnny on London's most iconic breakfast show is a dream come true for me."

Is Johnny Vaughan's the "most iconic" breakfast show? Even if you allow for there being degrees of iconism, if you say 'breakfast show presenters in London' isn't Tarrant still the first one that springs to mind? And Baker, even though he's in the afternoons now, is still more iconic than Vaughan, surely?

And is 'listen to Johnny make me laugh for four hours' as compelling an offer to an audience as Snowdon seems to think?

Ah, yes. There's no pubs in the suburbs

We really hope that the story in this morning's Bizarre is just a spot of space-filling speculation and that Amy Winehouse's dad and manager don't think that the way to deal with someone who has serious addiction problems is to get them to "move out of Camden" and to "have a word with landlords in Camden":

"Ray has been to see the landlords of pubs in Camden to ask them to help keep Amy in check.

“He wants them to look out for hangers-on who might lead her into trouble."

Ah, yes. Because up to now, the people who run Camden's pubs would have been unaware that Amy was in trouble.

More to the point, what are they supposed to do? "I'm not serving you, you've got a hanger-on with you. You'll have to go outside if you want an acolyte..."

And if the landlords of Camden could somehow control Winehouse's drinking, then why would you take the trouble to move her away to another part of town where her manager hasn't had a word?

Still, having seen Newton's interview style on last night's Britain's Next Top Model, we're starting to see how this sort of thing might appear in the papers. The would-be models were put through a "task" where they were grilled by Newton on supposed scandals they'd been involved in; "I'm Victoria Newton from The Sun" sat asking them weak questions, wearing enormous sunglasses (I do apologise if Victoria had recently had a cataract operation before she'd filmed the segment.) How can you interview someone properly on a sex or drug scandal if you're unable to make eye contact with them? The whole piece was a bit stilted - the programmes quickly moved on to a bit with Joan Rivers and Max Clifford instead - but did include the comedy gold of Newton, in all seriousness, suggesting that showing your breasts might undermine your modelling career.