It's all too easy kicking someone when they are on their knees, but sometimes it's just irresistable. So apologies in advance to Five.
The low-budget terrestrial channel, which has seen its share of ad revenue fall off the cliff this year, has just announced its exciting new entertainment line-up (stop sniggering).
Headlining is the juicy offering Farmer Wants a Wife, starring Louise Redknapp. The six-part series follows farmers trying to find a suitor and, in the words of the press release, find out 'if love can blossom in the barnyards and pigsties of rural Britain.'
And if this wasn't sure enough to reverse its double-digit decline in ad revenue, the channel has also kindly commissioned a third series of Extreme Fishing with Robson Green, which will see the loveable/massively irritating Geordie on his most challenging fishing mission yet.
Richard Woolfe, Five's channel controller, describes the line-up as 'brilliant and gripping' with the promise that there's plenty more of the same to come. Streuth.
Given that Channel 4 is in advanced talks to protect its future, after publicly rebutting Five's advances, and with numerous other discussions between broadcasters going on to protect their futures, Five is looking like like the spare dick at an orgy.
Unless its owner RTL finds another company to merge with and fast, I wouldn't bet on Woolfe's promise actually coming true. And I'm afraid that you'd probably struggle to find anyone who would actually miss it.
