Reality TV: home for experts and idiots

Oct 24 2007 by Tim Jenkins, Western Mail

YOU may have thought the role of village idiot has been confined to history, but you’d be wrong.

It’s a little known fact that because of the urbanisation of the UK after World War II, when the village declined, the idiot, merely migrated to reality TV. I am, of course talking about The X Factor et al. But if you like your humiliation with a high finance theme, watch Dragons’ Den (BBC2, Mondays).

Contestants, generously called entrepreneurs, pitch to five wealthy business types to gain an investment in their fledgling, or even non-existent, business. And while most leave the den with nothing but the derision of the dragons and a broken dream of riches, one or two entrepreneurs turn out to be the equivalent of Will Young or Shayne Ward.

This week’s show had it all; pants with a pouch for one’s prophylactics, a device to help children go to toilet and two clever kids (looked 12 but were probably 28) with a website to follow the gaming industry.

GamingAlerts.co.uk picked up £200,000 to propel itself forward to bigger and better things. The company provides offers, advice and bonuses direct to users’ PCs from all the major online casinos, poker sites and sports books.

Tomorrow, PartyGaming will issue a trading statement. The gaming sector has explosive opportunities and serious threats. The company’s principal business is online poker and is a global leader in this field. PartyGaming’s share price has more than halved in the past 12 months. This share has been a favourite with day traders and was up almost 3.5% in trading yesterday.

Big Yellow Group saw its share price surge yesterday morning. One of their competitors LOK’nSTORE report final results on Monday. These companies provide storage services. Big Yellow’s price has fallen over the year and currently sits up at 484p off it’s low earlier this month. LOK’nSTORE was unchanged yesterday at 190p.

Today Friends Provident publishes interim results. In the summer the company announced terms of an agreed merger with Resolution. Resolution’s star has been in the ascendancy since the announcement and traded up at 719p yesterday. Meanwhile Friends Provident were trading around the 170p level and the general direction of the share has been gradually south.