Oh, BBC. According to The Guardian, you really do have your head up your arse quite a lot these days. After spending quite a lot of time trying to axe 6Music last year (£9 million in funding in 2008/09, and the one place where loads of new and interesting music is played on British radio), it’s now decided that BBC3 is, for some reason, sacrosanct, despite costing £115 million per year to run.

The digital channel’s new controller, Zai Bennett argues BBC3 is required to enable people to “experiment” with talent and formats, in the manner its rivals cannot. In the old days, that’s what BBC2 was for. BBC1 was for big shows, and more niche stuff would be on BBC2. Still, experimentation is all well and good, so since I just still fall into the target demographic of 16-to-34-year-olds, I thought I’d try and list all the must-have television I can think of on BBC3. Here goes:

• Ideal (Graham Duff’s fantastic comedy about a small-time drugs dealer)
• Being Human (vamps versus werewolves in Bristol)
• Doctor Who repeats

That’s really it. And Being Human became inexplicably dreadful as of series 3, leaving Ideal, which could probably find a home on BBC2. Perhaps the forthcoming quality review will sort things out, but I find it odd the BBC is trying to justify saving a channel that’s increasingly full of exploitative crap like Freaky Eaters, Spendaholics, The House of Tiny Tearaways and Sex..with Mum & Dad, when it’s simultaneously arguing the channel’s survival is required to enable it to experiment in a way other networks cannot. Those shows are precisely the same kind of garbage 5, Sky and others do crap out.