That’s it. The experiment is drawing to a close. It’s been a rough week… no question about that. To highlight the point, The Jeremy Kyle Show is on in the background for the fifth time this week, and I wouldn’t wish that on anybody. I guess the point of this ‘social experiment’ was to see if ITV was as bad as we thought… and mostly, it is. When I went to bed last night, I’d watched a whopping 62 hours of ITV1 with only sleep for breaks.

Instead of coming away from this (keep in mind I’m going to keep at this ’til 5pm in the interests of doing it ‘right’, and taking my tally up to 73 hours) never wanting to watch ITV ever again, and filled with anger at such shoddy TV, I’ve got a very different feeling altogether. There’s no denying that I’ll be pleased it’s over (as my most current picture testifies), but I’ve surprised myself at my overall feeling towards the channel.

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Oooh. Look how peeved I am. ITV is proving to be a cruel mistress indeed. Not only is it driving me mad, but it’s also provided me with a piece of real TV gold. This is week, I was concerned that I was going to be completely snobby about ITV and hoped that I would enjoy some of the shows. Sadly, the output has been so bad that it’s not really given me the chance to give it a chance… but then Dexter came along and suddenly the world didn’t seem half as bad.

Right now, I feel like there’s only me and the daytime controller for ITV who know the ins-and-outs of what goes on the screen. However, he doesn’t have to sit through every single show, every single day. That said, the terrible programming has led me to believe that ITVs future might not be as bad as it seems.

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Look. Look at those eyes. They’re eyes that constantly feel tired from watching nothing but ITV1 for two days solid. I thought that any troubles I might have during this would be purely mental, but no, this constant swill has made me feel lethargic and grumpy… and I’m not even over the hump yet. Joy.

One thing that is constantly on my mind is that, I’m wondering whether ITV is particularly bad, especially in such concentrated doses, or whether any of the channels would have this effect on me. It’s difficult to say without going through the whole process again with another broadcaster… but something tells me that ITV is the worst of the worst.

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I’ll admit that sometimes, I can be a bit too cynical for my own good. It doesn’t help me at all when my cynicism proves to be correct as it produces even more cynicism in me, probably to a fault. Last night, I watched ITV’s newest incarnation of The News at Ten (ITV1, Monday, 10pm) and was reminded of a thought I had a couple of years ago.

The war in Iraq has brought us things we never thought… or wanted… to see. Previously, war coverage was grainy Pathe newsreels and dodgy satellite link-ups to people in arid conditions. The newest war has seen technology so advanced that we can watch battles from tanks and planes, and explosions flare up almost first-hand. This led me to believe that the news people wouldn’t be happy until they’d strapped a camera on a soldier’s head so that we could watch him kill, or, for a better news story, watch him die on the frontline. Well folks, it’s happened.

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It’s Day Two and I’m already feeling it. It eels like ITV is turning my brain into swill. The programmes are bad and the constant interruption of commercials is driving me insane. Someone once said “How can you put on a meaningful drama when, every fifteen minutes, proceedings are interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits with toilet paper?” and that’s pretty much how I feel. ITV flickers from being sensitive to ogreish without much care… but if you stay watching, it makes you feel really weird.

Watching 17 hours of ITV straight is enough to do anyone in, and it has made me wonder if this bizarre fluey feeling I’ve got in my head would have happened if I’d done the experiment with another channel. One of the main bugbears is the news. It’s constant and never changes. Each bulletin is the same as the last, to the point where you find yourself completely insensitive to each dreadful happening in the world.

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And so it begins. My stint with nought but ITV1 trundles into action and I’m already upset about the whole thing… to the point where, as my picture testifies, I look disheveled like a hobo alcoholic. To be honest, I didn’t think it would be that difficult watching nothing but ITV. Telly is telly is telly. However, starting at 7am, and only a couple of hours in, I feel like I want to die.

Starting early in the morning is really throwing yourself in the deep end. I’ve refused to look at the screen for fear of crying. Despite the lack of visual stimuli, I can still hear. All I’ve heard so far is a series of women cackling about inane guff, loads of adverts, a ditty for GMTV on almost constant repeat… and now… Jeremy Kyle. I’m considering buying a toweling dressing gown and taking up day-time drinking and smoking really long cigarettes like Berkeley Reds.

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