The question is, who’s going to present it? Steve Rider left the BBC in a huff to front ITV’s coverage, so it’s unlikely he’ll be welcomed back. Media Guardian ridiculously claims that “Gabby Logan, Gary Lineker and John Inverdale are all being touted,” but it’s unlikely to be any of those three, and it’s definitely not going to be Gary Lineker.

My first thought on hearing the news this morning was that Richard Hammond should get the gig. For one thing, Bernie Ecclestone would surely approve of someone even shorter than him doing the job.

I’d also like to see James May doing the grid walk (“Kimi, a word? Oh cock”) but that’s possibly less likely.

It also remains to be seen who’ll be commentating, but despite everyone on the BBC Sport Editors blog blindly imploring them to “get Murray Walker back” it’s not going to happen. He’s 85!

I’m not going to rehash the arguments I used last time I blogged about this, but it’s interesting to read the responses on the BBC Sport blog, where the posts generally fall into two camps: a few people who recognise that all it effectively means is the end of a (truly great) theme tune; and the rest who seem to view it as the destruction of all they hold dear about England. I particularly liked the poster who lamented the fact that there’d be no more World Cup Grandstand, even though they haven’t used that title since 1994.

But of course, for true professional Getting Grandstand Wrong, you have to turn to the press. The Daily Mail “broke” the story, with a piece which largely seems to consist of David Coleman mourning the fact that Grandstand isn’t allowed to cover news any more. Admittedly the piece does quote Des Lynam’s pragmatic response to the news, and acknowledges BBC Sport’s strides in interactive coverage, but rounds off with the line, “So farewell Grandstand. One can’t help thinking that Final Score could never come up with the romance of East Fife 4 Forfar 5.” Given that Final Scorewas always a part of Grandstand, this is essentially meaningless. Moreover, it’s 2007 and nobody cares about comedy Scottish football results.

On to the clueless Jim Shelley in The Mirror, lazily cobbling together a load of guff about how Grandstand used to cover “Wimbledon and the Grand National” (yeah, when was the last time you saw those on the BBC?), how ITV nicked the Premiership (nothing to do with Grandstand and the BBC got it back anyway) and how Grandstand was reduced to … yes, trampolining. To cap it all off, he appears to think the April Fool fight amongst the production team was real. Mind you, Jim Shelley probably thinks the swearing Rainbow Christmas tape is real.

Best of all is this clown, Tom Little in Scotland on Sunday, and his eulogy to the glory days when Grandstand showed everything from “top-level football to Grand Slam tennis and the big horse races to Five Nations rugby.” It takes some chutzpah to come up with that in a week when BBC Sport is covering, er, top-level football, Grand Slam tennis and Six Nations rugby.

For all that, it’ll still be weird to look in the TV guide on a Saturday afternoon and see “1.00 Rugby”. I suspect the world will still be spinning on its axis, though.

The problem with this sort of exercise is that they just always get bad television wrong. For me, bad television is a programme that has had time, money and publicity lavished on it, only for it to fall disastrously short in every single department. Like Friends and Crocodiles or Max and Paddy’s Road To Nowhere, to name two examples off the top of my head. Bad television is not an old episode of George and Mildred held under a microscope to sneer at the Ropers’ wallpaper.

Cheggers’ Naked Jungle, intended as nothing more than a shameless exercise by Channel 5 to get in the papers (like Naughton’s list, in fact) tops the list. And surprise surprise, here’s the Minipops, a programme that barely anyone has ever seen beyond the context of “crap TV” clip shows. But, y’know, it’s easy to rustle up a feverish bit of copy about paedophilia and Bob’s your uncle.

Indeed, it feels like half the list comes third-hand from BBC2′s TV Hell, a theme night which actually managed to be affectionate about bad old telly when that was still allowed. Triangle and The Borgias are here, while Origami and Heil Honey I’m Home come straight from Channel 4′s own list of top 100 worst TV shows. The presence of the latter, a BSB one-off comedy that surely nobody has ever seen outside the offices of Noel Gay Television, is inexplicable. Yes, it was a sitcom about Hitler, but that was the point. Like Mel Brooks turning up on Russell Harty and announcing “Hitler was Jewish!” You know, a joke.

Likewise, The Black and White Minstrel Show and Love Thy Neighbour turn up for some more easy copy about “racism”, because we’d never get crass racial stereotypes on primetime television now, would we … eh, Matt and David?

Crossroads, Eldorado, That’s Life, Eurovision … practically no original thought has gone into this list whatsoever. WhyPopstars: The Rivals (which made Girls Aloud) but not Fame Academy (which made everyone bored)? Why LA Pool Party, a long-forgotten bit of fluff from a long-forgotten channel?

No, Clive Anderson All Talk or the Clive James Postcards weren’t their finest hours, but they don’t deserve to be lumped alongside Celebrity Wrestling.

Practically the only sacred cow that Naughton dares slaying is French and Saunders. Yes, for the last 12 years their shows have consisted of them sitting around pretending not to have any ideas (when they really were sitting around not having any ideas) and making Lulu references, but I can forgive them for their fantastic Abba parody when that was something approaching an original idea. F&S is no worse than the heroically over-rated Absolutely Fabulous.

It’s so lazy. And worse, there’s something slightly unpleasant about seeing popular successes that I’d never ever defend, like Heartbeat or The Good Old Days, being demolished en masse, as though Naughton is punching the air as he types, and shouting “right on!” as he fearlessly lays into The Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Congratulations.

I’m going to buy TV Times this week.

New Who companion Freema Agyeman was grilled live from Pontypool, from a trailer that looked alarmingly like a 1980s Barratt showhome, in a textbook example of the “what? … sorry … I was just going to ask you” troubled satellite interview. Kate Humble searched for red deer in a piece which relied a lot on whether you go for her head-girl hockey-sticks manner (guess what, I don’t). And finally, a live interview with one of the victims of those drug trials that went wrong, and his new wife. It sounded like a decent scoop, but it never quite revved up (although I’d started flipping by this point).

Adrian Chiles is, as everyone’s been saying, a brilliant presenter, but he is undoubtedly better when there’s something more tangible to work with, such as football analysis, an Apprentice firing or a hapless chief executive to be interrogated on Working Lunch. The presence of Nadia Sawalha put me in mind of too many dire BBC morning shows, usually involving the residents of Albert Square nagging us to stop smoking or something.

It wasn’t bad, but it didn’t exactly feel like vital viewing, either.

Oh, and the five-minute regional bulletin at 7.25 feels a bit unnecessary, as you just get the same stories they’d recapped half an hour earlier and, in the case of London, a second full regional weather forecast in the space of 30 minutes.

The chief problem is that the real Brydon is so bloomin’ likeable and talented that the notion of him as a paranoid Larry Sandersesque egomaniac being reduced to fronting a deriviative HIGNFY rip-off doesn’t exactly wash. And, at times, Rob has his foot down on the insult accelerator a little too hard, so when Gail Porter is suggested as a guest, Brydon shamelessly lays into her baldness. Nobody who does an impression of Ken Bruce could possibly be this nasty, surely?

There’s also a slightly odd running gag about panellist David Mitchell not wanting his Peep Show schtick to be referenced, which doesn’t really ring true, though it does give Rob the opportunity to “do” his Dave, which is fun. Jonathan Ross turns up in a cameo, gleefully playing himself as the terrifying showbiz monster he has surely become.

But the really brilliant thing, as with all Brydon’s projects, is in his eye for the detail. The actual panel game itself is an excruciating fascimile of the real thing, complete with all the lazy tics and riffs. Meanwhile, in one behind-the-scenes vignette, Brydon doubts that Gordon Ramsay might be willing to appear on the show, first suggesting Ainsley Harriott as a possible replacement, before readjusting his expectations even lower and mooting Phil Vickery…

The writing has been on the wall since 2001, when Football Focus and Final Score became shows in their own right. In between, Grandstand has largely abandoned the compendium format of its heyday, and evolved into a programme devoted to one big event. The audience for a five-hour miscellany of sport in all its forms has all but disappeared. If you like snooker, you don’t want it interrupted by scrambling. And if you’re interested in football, you don’t want to wait until 4.40pm for the results, when you can watch the scores roll in all afternoon.

BBC1 will still be devoted to sport on Saturday afternoons, but it’s a pity that something practically everyone grew up with, even if they were only tuning in for Doctor Who, is about to disappear forever. The theme tune, the teleprinter, the pools news and the handwritten racing results … enduring images, as Ron Manager would say.

Moreover, the end of Grandstand just about sounds the death knell for the classic all-round sportscaster. In the old days, the programme would be anchored by the same presenter, week in, week out – Frank Bough, Des Lynam or Steve Rider – live from a buzzing Lime Grove studio full of typists. Now, if Grandstand is covering tennis, it’s Sue Barker, if it’s rugby union it’s John Inverdale, and if it’s snooker it’s Hazel Irvine. It seems a shame that we’ll probably not see the like of David Coleman or Harry Carpenter bestriding the sporting globe again.

I think watching Grandstand is one of my earliest television memories. I remember being hugely amused at a rugby team being called Bath.

Let’s brainstorm some words to describe the new series of The Apprentice, shall we? Marker pens at the ready…

It’s remarkable how the latest batch of contestants still haven’t got the measure of the real Sir Alan Sugar. Not a man, it was plain from the first series, who’s spent much time “thinking outside the box”. And yet the class of 2006 still insist on solemnly clustering around their flipcharts week after week. Sugar, you suspect, is not about to hand a £100,000 contract to someone like Mani, a man fully prepared to use the phrase, “You go from a divergent phase to a convergent phase” in a real-life conversation.

Summoned to the Oxo Tower restaurant at 6.45am, this week the teams were charged with running their own food stall at the Thames Festival. In a highly predictable “shock twist”, Sugar decreed that the men’s team should be led by a woman, and vice versa. Management consultant Alexa volunteered to trade places with management consultant Mani, who received a terse warning from Sir Alan that, “We’re gonna see your skills, not only in biznizz but how you’re gonna manage a buncha wimmin.” Sugar’s unspoken assertion that the girls resembled a pack of ferrets fighting in a handbag might have been politically suspect, had it not also been entirely accurate.

For her part, Alexa had narrowly escaped redundancy the previous week. It’s always one of the programme’s most revealing sequences as the remaining contestants confidently predict who’ll be leaving the boardroom in a black cab, only for their faces to drop to the luxury carpet as their sure-fire tip returns home in triumph. The loathsome Ruth, the sort of person who can only win an argument by proclaiming “end of” (the debating equivalent of “no backs”) had assuredly informed her colleagues we wouldn’t be seeing Jo again (“For three reasons, number one, poor planning, number two, erm …”), only for the hyperactive human resources manager to walk through the door about two seconds later.

Naturally, Mani mounted a brainstorming session to determine Velocity’s strategy (“I want quickfire, just give me words”), to little success. Their original plan to make crêpes foundered on their essential Frenchness, despite some optimistic attempts (“Sea-faring theme”) to link them to the River Thames. Mani hopefully rummaged through a props warehouse (“What do they eat in Egypt?”) for inspiration. Eventually he stumbled on an Oriental theme (“Maybe a Buddha sitting in the corner”) and decided to sell noodles.

Disappointingly, this edition was light on scenes featuring the teams cruising through the streets of London in a cortege of black people-carriers, while squabbling into mobile phones. But we did get Mani ordering soft drinks (“What’s the difference between 7-Up and Sprite?”) in pigeon English (“I need to buy. Drink. OK?”) from a Chinese man, and pretending to be surprised at the price of black serviettes. If we’ve learned one thing about Mani, he isn’t very good at pretending to be surprised.

In the kitchen, the Velocity girls howled along to Phil Collins as they shredded chicken and chopped veg. Resentment mounting at Mani’s reluctance to get his hands dirty, the day ended in a showdown back at Gable Lodge that left Sharon sobbing into her duvet.

Meanwhile the fluttery Alexa took charge of the boys, having ominously announced, “I would hate to now get fired without having had the chance to be PM.” There was even more brainstorming to decide which “food genre” Invicta would be serving up (“Chips are good”), with the perceptive Tuan seizing on Syed’s brainwave of pizza, enthusiastically pointing out its mass appeal (“Vegetarian … carnivores, it covers the lot”).

Paul and Ansell dressed up as oversized comedy chefs, as a change from their usual role as oversized comedy businessmen, while Syed left his food order with an answering machine, a decision that proved fatal (“That mozzarella’s just completely blown our budget”). Practically at random, Invicta decided to make 500 pizzas, and despite Alexa’s invaluable experience on the pizza counter at Asda, at the end of a heated night pounding away at dough, they had rustled up a mere 90.

The big day dawned, and the South Bank proved thin on carnivores hungry for a slice of pizza with a dollop of bolognese smeared on top. Invicta slashed their prices (“Early Bird Special”) and Paul essayed a polished line in suburban wine-bar smarm (“You want a drink with that, it’s for sexy women, you might just scrape it through”) as he desperately hawked the last few slices.

Inevitably, back in the boardroom, it emerged the hapless Invicta had lost a thumping £807. In fact, as Sir Alan observed, each slice of their pizza cost £4.37 to make, and ended up being flogged for 50p. You don’t need a flipchart to work out that is no way to make a profit. To just break even, as Samuel noted, they’d have had to sell one slice every nine seconds.

For all his faults, Mani had clearly latched on to the winning strategy when he ordered his team to shred the chicken to make it go further, at the same time Syed was ordering 100 supersized birds and throwing most of them in the bin.

Syed and Tuan were hauled into the boardroom by their team leader. “Quite frankly,” announced Sugar, “I’d like to get rid of the bleeding three of you!” But there could surely only be one loser. Economics graduate Alexa had even had problems doling out the right change.

For a moment, though, it looked like it might be Syed clambering into the back of the taxi. It had been satisfying to see him gazing enviously at Mani’s actually-not-bad noodle bar, but he’d had the good grace to admit Invicta were well beaten.

Sir Alan has become a master of showmanship, however. Syed was staying. “Can you tell me what you were physically, actually doin’, apart from being a strategist?” he demanded of Alexa, almost spitting out the last word. She had to go.

And any rehabilitation that the “business bad boy” might have undergone in the eyes of the viewer over the last few weeks surely evaporated when he toadily thanked Sugar for his reprieve. “Thank you Sir Alan, thank you for the opportunity.” Sugar remained characteristically nonplussed. “Cheeky bastard!”

In The Apprentice, nobody ever makes a mistake (“I’ve learned a lesson from this”) or takes personal responsibility (“We made the wrong assumption”). Nobody ever puts in 100%, it’s always 150% minimum, and if you say “I’m a born winner” often enough, maybe you’ll start to believe it yourself.

Sir Alan won’t, though. “This is not,” as he pointed out, “a ‘oliday camp or some college of further education, where dumbkopfs come to learn where to make mistakes.”

No brains, but a lot of storming. That’s The Apprentice.

It’s been said that Soccer Saturday is the closest thing football has ever had to Test Match Special, weaving the scores and statistics with bonhomie and humour. Stelling has made the name of Kenny Deuchar, a prolific Scottish lower-league striker who combines his football career with his day job as a medic, branding him “the good doctor” and hailing Deuchar’s granny Mae, a confirmed Stelling fanatic.

Meanwhile, over on the BBC, Ray Stubbs makes a serious face, frowns, and says, “Garth, what’s your take on the events at Middlesbrough this week?”

Which brings us to Gary Lineker. Having attracted a horde of admirers in his new career as a football broadcaster, he now seems intent on losing them as fast as possible. As Hattenstone says, he’s become obsessed with tedious jokes (“Why the long face, Ruud?” – unfunny and unoriginal), tiresome wordplay (“Crouch comes off the couch to prove he’s no slouch” – what?) and smirking innuendo (“England has gone Bent!”).

The nadir came at the start of a recent Match Of the Day, featuring several matches from the Premiership relegation zone. Introducing his pundits, Lineker announced, “two men who know all about their bottom – of the table, that is – are Alan Hansen and Lee Dixon”.

The prospect of a month of all this during the World Cup isn’t exactly an enticing one.

Dissecting this year’s split, announced this afternoon, it’s tempting to suggest ITV have got the upper hand. The BBC get England’s first match, against Paraguay, on the first Saturday, but Gabby and co nab England’s two remaining group games, against Trinidad and Tobago and Sweden, a potential group decider. It’s 2-1 to ITV then, but the BBC have bagged first choice in both the last 16 and quarter-final rounds, which means England’s knockout progress would be exclusive to the BBC. If England reach the semi-final, it will be simulcast on the BBC and ITV.

Elsewhere, the BBC get the opening ceremony and first game, which means ITV have to kick-off by attempting to get all excited at Poland v Ecuador. And the BBC get two fixtures featuring Brazil and Italy, and all of France’s games. Bizarrely, on Tuesday 13 June, the BBC appear to be showing three live matches in one day, which has surely never happened before. There’ll be letters …

In pure commercial terms, ITV will be pleased at getting two guaranteed big games they can sell airtime around, while the BBC are traditionally more disposed to gambling on England making progress for their slice of the blockbuster matches. And no doubt ITV have agreed to this deal in the knowledge that when big games are screened on both BBC and ITV, it’s always the Beeb that cleans up.

ITV1 appear to have dumped plans to counter Channel 4′s transmissions of The Paul O’Grady Show with, er, The Best of The Paul O’Grady Show, with something equally original over the beans on toast – old repeats of You’ve Been Framed and a blatant rip-off of Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two, to accompany their blatant rip-off of Strictly Come Dancing, Dancing on Ice.

It also appears that we’re soon to be getting another revival of The Price is Right, fronted by squeaky-voiced jungle funnyman Joe Pasquale, which it seems ITV1 will be punting out at 4.30pm. Which is completely the wrong time for the naked greed and arm-waving hysteria of TPIR. And who in their right minds could put up with that every single afternoon? Noel Edmonds is hardly going to be worried about the return of Cliffhanger and Switcheroo, is he?

To accommodate this, it looks like CITV is to be slashed to an hour a day, which makes you wonder why ITV are even bothering. How many kids are going to tune in for an hour, when there’s two hours-plus on BBC1, and all day on the Beeb’s kids’ channels, not to mention Nick, Disney, Cartoon Network etc? Presumably this hour will be little more than an extended trailer for their own forthcoming CITV channel. But given that ITV are only now obliged to provide eight hours of childrens’ programming a week, I don’t see why they don’t just do two four-hour slabs on weekend mornings.

One more point. How long does BBC1 stay out of all this before the ITV-C4 teatime war starts to affect share? There were rumours a few years back that Mark Thompson, in his previous incarnation as Director of Television, wanted to shift CBBC in its entirety to BBC2. Might we soon see The Weakest Link in tandem with Neighbours on BBC1?