Simon Cowell's Big General Election Show - let's dream the dream.

Could Simon Cowell be about to redefine political programming with a new popular genre – politainment? He outlined a startlingly good idea for a new show in an interview with Newsnight – an interactive audience voting show on the major issues of the day, featuring a big red telephone with a direct line to Downing Street, so that the Prime Minister could take part. A cross between Question Time and Deal or No Deal, the show would be an obvious next step for Cowell, after the triumph of The X Factor this autumn.  

The only disappointment is that he ruled himself out as the host of the show, but despite that I’m going to call it Simon Cowell’s Big Political Issue and I very much doubt if I would be in a minority in wanting to tune into it. Newsnight may have interviewed Cowell with a wry smile on its collective face - 1m viewers at 10.30pm weekdays is a good Newsnight audience for serious political reporting – but the key figure to bear in mind is the recent Question Time show with the BNP’s Nick Griffin.  

It was watched by 8.34m/50% share, with almost a million more watching on the iPlayer. For Cowell that must sound like an unserved audience that he could reach with a new live politainment show. A mass audience approaching ten million and a strong interactive dimension – sounds like X Factor territory. But which channel would run it? The obvious candidate would be ITV, since Cowell has effectively re-written the book on the ITV audience, and a show like this must draw on his poulist instincts, rather than the public service ethos of the BBC. When asked to list the big issues he replied, without missing a beat, ‘Iraq, Afghanistan, knife-crime’. Cowell’s Big Political Issue would be in tune with the red tops, following the X Factor model.  

But it would be a huge risk for ITV to run politainment in the heart of its schedule, displacing a drama. And ironically the two people who would have to help him with the risk are the two former controllers of BBC1 – Peter Fincham, now at ITV, and Lorraine Heggessey, now at Talkback Thames – who, in their previous guise had responsibility for the BBC’s flagship political discussion programme, Question Time.  

Would they dare take up Cowell’s idea on a commercial channel? He envisaged his show as a more entertaining version of the leader’s debate – something that ordinary viewers would want to watch, rather than something that the parties and broadcasters are able to agree to produce.  

It’s enough to give the compliance lawyers and the ITV sales team palpitations, but think of how much more enjoyable next May would be if Simon could turn the general election into politainment. Westminster - Dream the Dream!