IS anyone else out there getting fed up with stupid television? I do not mean the whole medium, because despite all its failings, there are still a few programmes worth watching on the box.

If you look hard enough, you will be able to find comedies to make you laugh, dramas to make you cry and documentaries to make you think more deeply about this world.

You will also find a few programmes that have been there forever, like Coronation Street, warming its audience like a pair of comfortable old slippers.

But straddling the schedules is the monster that is reality TV, increasingly dominated by the kind of programmes that seem to invite the audience - us - to look down on the people it features.

What on earth would possess anyone in their right mind to out themselves to millions as a filthy, dirty slob, as in How Clean is Your House?, or its sister programme Too Posh to Wash? Do these people feel no shame?

The entertainment value of shows such as Pop Idol and the X-Factor is based on seeing people with no talent queue up for hours for a few seconds of very public humiliation.

Meanwhile bossy clothes gurus Trinny and Susannah prod and poke their victims' wobbly bits as though they were prize heifers in an auction, while other programmes turn a harsh spotlight on people's physical imperfections before offering them the chance to go under the knife.

Even the relocation bods are at it, actively encouraging people to up sticks for countries they may have visited once on holiday, instead of sitting them down and giving them a good talking to.

Just this week, one unworldly middle-aged couple were helped to move to Mozambique, waving goodbye to an elderly parent who had just been diagnosed with cancer.

They found seaside property cheap, but did no-one think to point out the metal bars on the windows? Predictably they were mugged within days.

Then there are the programmes showing ineffectual parents, exposing their kids to the world as little brats. Bet they won't be teased and bullied at school, then.

I suppose if the children survive, they could grow up to appear on a new programme where parents move in to sort out an adult offspring's chaotic finances.

See what I mean?

Perhaps these poor saps think that being on telly makes it all worthwhile, but I wonder if they ever feel cheap and used after the cameras have gone. Stupid television, featuring stupid people, at a screen very near you.