The Money Programme has been running a special series of programmes about the media, including this episode looking at the business of TV, something that the UK excels at. Specifically, we’re good at creating and selling formats – a complete programme recipe that can hopefully be translated to other countries. There’s a programme bible, which includes everything from specific editing, sound and lighting directions through to, tellingly, how to pick the “real people” to appear in the show. The Millionaire Bible includes that the top prize money must be ‘life changing’: a million pounds in the UK, but just 50,000€ in Kosovo and Albania – which still represents twenty times the average salary there.

My favourite interpretation of a format was Affari Tuoi, the Italian version of Deal or No Deal. The show seems to last for hours, there are gag prizes as well as money, but the presenter, Flavio Insinna (now replaced by Max Giusti) was genuinely charming, and everyone on the show seemed to be having a great time, compared to the tension-ratcheting we get in the UK, and the smarmy, slightly evil Noel Edmonds.

Meanwhile, ITV have trotted out its new Saturday night gameshow, The Colour of Money, all formatted up and ready to be sold, probably including the gurning Chris Tarrant. It’s the complete opposite of Millionaire – it’s a random game, but with personalities, a backstory (husband going in the army), rationalisations about colour decisions (the game revolves around 20 ‘cash machines’, each named after a colour), reaction interviews with seemingly everyone in the studio, heavily edited ad bumpers showing crying, fear etc. Blimey, there’s even fireworks if they hit their arbitrary money target, in this first case £64,000 – not completely life changing. It all feels a bit pointless, with contestants and their families wheeled on and off so quickly there’s no empathy, and therefore, no show.

Brooker’s respectful—even humble—with the writers and, in turn, they’re frank and disarmingly modest about the process: about the endless cups of tea and the fear and the drudgery of the first draft but also about the elation of seeing the finished product and the compulsion to write.

It’s really inspiring TV and, for anyone who’s ever attempted to write anything (and that’s, like, everyone now, right?), it’s really encouraging and of genuine practical use. I know for certain that professors of creative writing everywhere will be pirating this wholesale so they can put the video on and nip out for a smoke without feeling guilty. Absolutely superb TV.

The genius of Last Choir Standing is to roll in lots of real human drama with the natural vocal fireworks. You’ve got ordinary people overcoming circumstance and nerves and history and mercurial judges to progress round-to-round, plus all the phony drama of the verdict with the long pauses and the tears and the elation. I’m going to bet two or three quid that, unless you’re a block of wood, you’re going to find yourself spontaneously crying about a dozen times during this show. Really, you will.

4.6 million people watched Last Choir Standing right after the Doctor Who finale last week. That sounds pretty good for a choral music programme but it’s actually below the average for BBC1 in that time slot. It trashes ITV’s offer (You’ve Been Framed) nicely but now that Doctor Who’s finished I reckon it’ll fall away sharply and that means we’re unlkely to see Last Choir Standing again after this series, which is a pity.

At the show’s web site you can watch full-length performances, including the remakable Dreemz and (my favourite) the Hereford Police Male Voice Choir.