The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, has launched a scathing (but seemingly justified) attack against arch rivals ITV, accusing shows like Tycoon and Grease is the Word of being copycats of successful corporation shows. Something I mentioned t’other week no less. BBC? Bleedin’ copycats.

Mr Thompson, speaking at the launch of the BBC 2007 annual report today, attacked the “copycatting” policy of rivals, which he said was flattering but showed that the BBC was leading the way in programming. He singled out ITV1 business reality show Tycoon, which he said was “very like The Apprentice and there’s possibly a bit of Dragons Den in there”.

Mr Thompson also highlighted other ITV1 formats such as reality talent format Grease is the Word and Trinny and Susannah Undress, which “feels quite a lot like What Not To Wear”, before adding “you see very rapid copycatting.”

As previously reported, Tycoon, created by fat cat and Dragons’ Den judge Peter Jones, was pulled from the ITV1 peak time schedule last week because of poor ratings. The poor ratings were presumably a result of the show being… well… a piss-poor copycat of The Apprentice. The show will return to a 10pm ITV1 peaktime slot on Monday, but will be cut down from 60 minutes to a half-hour format.

Grease, broadcast on ITV1 recently, revolved around the search for male and female leads to play Danny and Sandy in a West End version of the hit 70s musical. Of course, we’ve seen this format work before, notably with BBC1′s Any Dream Will Do… an near identical show that searched for male lead for a revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. That’s not to mention How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria.

This criticism is completely justified and begs the question; does ITV have a real purpose anymore? Apart from, say, Corrie, when was the last time anyone tuned in to ITV watch some good quality programming? You’ve Been Framed? Some look at Peter Andre’s life? ITV needs to pull their socks up and fast. [Mof Gimmers]