Sh-ITV

The outgoing chief executive of ITV has been having a pop at Channel 4.

In a speech at the Edinburgh TV festival, Charles Allen said that Channel 4 should "grow up" and "face greater scrutiny of its programmes".

Anyone who's watched ITV recently (or in the last 10 years) would immediately recognise that this attack was broadly equivalent to a man dying of self-inflicted gunshot wounds taking the piss out of someone for stubbing their toe.

It's worth emphasising that word in the first sentence up there. He is the outgoing chief executive, and with good reason - his channel is a national disgrace.

Channel 4 isn't perfect, and I'm certainly not about to hold Big Brother up as an example of quality broadcasting. Indeed, such is my hatred for said 'programme', should I meet anyone involved with its production, I may find myself involuntarily injuring them with whatever was nearest to hand.

But when your entire schedule is filled with the kind of tat that even Endemol wouldn't consider making, you really have no position of authority.

When ITV started going down the tubes, I was actually quite dismayed - a channel that's been around for 50 years, the second oldest in Britain, with some great memories of shows from years gone by. But when I thought about it, it occurred to me that should it be put out of its misery now, I really couldn't care less.

There is literally not one programme on ITV1 that I watch, and if the worst that can happen is that the TV skips straight from BBC2 to Channel 4, that's surely a welcome price to pay so that we no longer have to pretend to foreign visitors that the third channel is actually a 24-hour rolling spoof station.