Copycat shows are packing out the TV shedules at the moment as producers latch onto a few successful ideas. But will viewers turn off as familiarity breeds contempt?

IF imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then TV programme makers on all channels should be feeling very smug and self-satisfied indeed. Once one of them gets a ratings-winning idea, then all the others clamber on to the bandwagon to present carbon copy shows.

The BBC governors reported in their new-style annual report that audiences were complaining about the quality of its programmes, but I reckon it's not so much the quality as the width - the choice of shows is too narrow because they're copycat versions of something else. As far as viewers are concerned, familiarity breeds contempt.

The criticism may have been aimed at BBC1 but that channel isn't the only guilty party serving up the sort of programme that new BBC chairman Michael Grade described last month as cynical and derivative. If only the BBC cared as much when it wasn't trying to set a good example in the run-up to its charter renewal.

BBC2 has already ditched some lifestyle and makeover shows to make way for more arts, current affairs and documentary programmes. But look at next week's schedules and you'll see the regular peaktime edition of Get A New Life supplemented by four early evening editions, cunningly entitled Get A New Life Extra, from Monday to Thursday.

Not a lot of variety there, may I suggest. And, in the first place, Get A New Life is a not very well-disguised ripoff of C4's far superior A New Life Down Under (or wherever).

That's one of the problems - the copy is rarely as good as the original, rather like pirated DVDs are renowned for their poor quality. Too often, the BBC or five ends up with a second-hand version that fails to match the one that came first.

The BBC can claim that home improvement show Changing Rooms and Ground Force's garden makeovers, trod new ground and were lifted by other channels. A Life of Grime, a fly-on-the-wall series about people with dirty jobs in such areas as sewage and pest control, was a big hit for BBC1. So much so that ITV1 felt obliged to make its own version, Dirtbusters.

C4 has led the way in recent years, particularly in the property market, helping people find homes at home and abroad. Location, Location, Location - and its various offshoots - established presenters Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer as cult figures.

Others have learnt to their cost that you need not only a strong format but presenters who catch the public's imagination. You really can't just put any old expert in front of the camera and expect them to win viewers' hearts, no matter how knowledgeable they are on their given subject.

The BBC also makes the mistake of flooding the schedules with all-too-similar shows. Mornings on BBC1 currently read like this: Homes Under The Hammer, To Buy Or Not To Buy, House Invaders, Bargain Hunt, Car Booty and - after a brief respite for the News and Neighbours - Cash In The Attic. All involve buying and selling of property or properties. Only the names have been changed to try to fool the viewer.

ITV1 pays tribute to other people's ideas with 60-Minute Makeover, in which Claire Sweeney and her team transform houses into... well, better houses, and Antiques Auction, whose title tells all. In the afternoon Airline USA is a spinoff from Airline, which was the commercial channel's version of BBC1's Airport.

Even five has adopted a spirit of if you can't beat them, join them. Its star property at present is straight-talking American interior designer Ann Maurice. As the House Doctor, she tells people why their homes aren't selling and ensures they take action to remedy the defects.

But five's Property Dreams, which helps people buy homes abroad, is hardly original. Try not to confuse it with C4's A Place In... series.

Hot Property is different - as a game show that enables first-time buyers to win a home if they can guess its selling price correctly, although I seem to recall that ITV once produced a series in which contestants could win a new home. And more recently there was the house-building competition series Building the Dream, fronted by Linda Barker.

If they're not pinching formats, they're stealing presenters. Now five has poached property experts Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan, from BBC2's The Million Pound Property Experiment, to add value to their property portfolio. First stop is Sunday's The 20 Quickest Ways To Make Money On Your Property, which wins no prizes for short, snappy titles but could boost five's ratings.

In C4's Wife Swap, couples switched partners, so ITV1 came up with a series in which couples swapped holidays. ITV's current Bad Lad's Army has 30 tearaways undergoing 1950s National Service training regime. In That'll Teach 'Em, schoolchildren went back to the classroom under conditions that existed in the 1950s.

While most reality and fly-on-the-wall formats are able to be copied, one is proving harder than others - Big Brother. When someone else tries to re-imagine the show, they fall flat on their faces. ITV tweaked the format, added the magic word "celebrity" and moved the concept outdoors in I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!, a sort of Big Brother with creepy-crawlies and bad weather.

But five learnt to its cost the hazards of copycat TV. Its Back to Reality locked survivors from other reality shows up in a house but the expected fireworks didn't happen and the series flopped.

Undeterred, five is trying again. It has asked Big Brother producer Endemol to produce a celebrity-based, peaktime show that will be stripped every night for several weeks in the autumn.

Published: 17/07/2004