In a controversial move, this blog won't mention the execrable Big Brother so if you want to read about what's going on, or otherwise, in the house go to one somewhere - sorry, anywhere - else.

In his column in last week's Marketing, our columnist, the veteran media hack Ray Snoddy, pointed out that national TV critics on national newspapers were dropping like flies. (http://www.brandrepublic.com/InDepth/Opinion/814207/Raymond-Snoddy-media-TV-critics-gone/)

Ray, in his own eloquent way, gave a convincing argument that given fragmented TV audiences, the views of one critic on one particular show are largely irrelevant because it's highly likely that most of its readers probably didn't watch it.

And I thought he was probably on the money.

But then a letter arrived from one of our readers gave an even better theory. He pointed out that given that newspaper groups are increasingly becoming multi-media operations themselves with TV feeds on websites, it was not in their interests to puff rival media channels that are now competing for consumers' attention.

So then I changed my mind and agreed with him.

And then today while going through the papers I was disheartened to see the amount of coverage of the first night of Big Brother. So now I don't know what to think and nor it seems do newspaper editors.

They are willing to jump on the coat-tails of successful TV brands in a bid to boost sales but don't want to play any role in creating or acknowledging new ones.

And I'm sorry for breaking my promise not to mention BB. Damn. Done it again.