Jason Manford

If they conducted a national poll to find which panel show the public thought best bridged the gap between Have I Got News For You and Family Fortunes, this would be the hands-down winner.

Host Jimmy Carr returns to deadpan his way through an eighth series of more current affair-based quipping.

The show's traditional opening round to try and guess which headlines have been exercising the public jawbones this week should be pretty easy. And you can bet team captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford have spent the week happily polishing ad-libbed one-liners about Britain's Got Talent, Susan Boyle's meltdown, The Apprentice and the Big Brother launch.

As with HIGNFY, the only flaw in this format is that the panelists then have to patiently EXPLAIN these hot topics to us as though we've just recently touched down from Mars. "She was this woman with bushy eyebrows who lived with her cat in a village in Scotland and then she became the most famous woman in the world and it all went a bit wrong..."

Chipping in with their two-pence worth this week will be Johnny Vegas, Ulrika Jonsson, Jodie Kidd (not known for her rapid-fire humour, but she may surprise us) and Jack Whitehall, who'll be secretly hoping that the nation will be talking of nothing other than what a shame it is he won't be hosting Big Brother's Big Mouth this year.

One of the nice spin-off benefits of Big Brother's return is that this splendid panel game, hosted by Jimmy Carr, also takes up its traditional place alongside it on a Friday night. Rival captains Sean Lock and Jason Manford, plus celeb guests, speculate as to the outcome of various weird surveys.

Now I like TV as much as the next geek daftie (look, I really do have a Bonekickers DVD boxset, honestly), but even my blood turned to ice when I read about the BBC's new Friday night panel quiz show...

Presenter Steve Jones, spreading his wings beyond T4, will host As Seen on TV (you see what they did there?), a panel game in a Buzzcocks stylee on the subject of, well, TV. The team captains will be outgoing This Morning host Fern Britton and comedian Jason Manford (drafted in from C4's 8 Out of 10 Cats).

Honestly, is that the best they can come up with for a Friday night these days? Really? Wow, Jay Hunt is making some dynamic commissioning decisions in her early days as BBC1 controller. Did nobody, at any point, sit her down and show her an episode of It's Only TV... But I Like It, the Jonathan Ross hosted TV themed panel game show? One can only assume not...

Panel shows, like Buzzcocks, HIGNFY and QI can be good, enjoyable, even subversive television. But the alchemy of getting the right make-up of on-screen talent and format to make it work is a tricky thing to pull off. One bum note and it all goes out of the window.

But whatever the success or otherwise of the finished product, on the surface, As Seen on TV just sounds like lazy, middle of the road television. Surely we deserve better? Or am I expecting too much these days?

I know what I'd like for Christmas - another scandal involving Jonathan Ross so Live At The Apollo can permanently replace his Friday night show. A nice bit of stand-up comedy is a perfect way to start the weekend, and the creative team always seem to get the perfect performer mix (though if I had my way, brilliant Michael McIntyre, who was in the first episode, would be on every single week).

Tonight's host is 8 Out Of 10 Cats stalwart Sean Lock, who shares his genius way of how to have fun with wrong numbers, and also his trick for getting local kids off his car without getting a mouthful of abuse.

He has a good old moan about pizza leaflets, self-service checkouts and confusing pub toilets (we've all been there - at some trendy bar, wondering which squiggle on the door is supposed to represent male and female).

With those rants out of the way, it's time to introduce the main act, the amiable Jason Manford - who just so happens to be his 8 Out Of 10 Cats rival. But that's never mentioned, of course. There'll be no plugging of rival channels here, thank you very much.

Jason Manford Interview

In this interview Jason Manford admits he didn't find Tonightly that funny but would still like a stab at a second series.

Satire! It's great. Except for when it's not, obviously. Then it's rubbish. That Have I Got News For You manages consistently to avoid the potholes routinely occupied by its contemporaries (to wit: crudeness, the triumphs of ego over comedic esprit de corps, Jason Manford, etc) is testament not only to the chemistry between long-serving team captains Ian Hislop and Paul Merton, but to wit so sublime it can turn a one-liner on Gordon Brown's incisors into a dazzling nugget of incontrovertible topical wisdom.

Returning as the show's guest host tonight is This Morning's astonishingly game/foolhardy Fern Britton. Place your bets now on how many seconds will elapse before Paul Merton mentions g*stric b*nds.

Hot Topic: Generation Next

Talent schemes like C4's help stop future TV stars slipping though the net, Jason Manford explains to Broadcast Now. (Registration may be required to view article)

And the prize for most innovative programme of the week goes to this offering, hosted by Jason Manford. Among those featured are consumer conspiricy theorist Steve Lipschitz, teenage telly addict Ollie and investaigative reporter Jack Whitehall.

Recorded before a live audience on the day of its broadcast, the quality of topical comedy show Tonightly is pretty much dependent on how inspired the writers felt when they got up that morning.

Possibly because it is such a bold venture, I have a lot of time for Tonightly. The comedy sketches lean towards the infantile rather than the satirical and are tediously dependent on profanity, but they are carried by the brash enthusiasm of their performers. Showbiz correspondent Ollie Roberts' cut and paste fake interviews may just be a repetition of the same joke, but it is a joke I always laugh at.

However, the show's greatest strengths lie in host Jason Manford and sidekick Andi Osho. Affable and unflappable, the pair exude confidence without ever coming over as smug. Something the presenters of The Eleven O'Clock Show never came close to achieving.

Tonightly is a three-week 11 O'Clock Show-style aberration that's part of Channel 4's Generation Next strand. So-called because that's where they'll all be working in six months time.

Particularly the hosts. Pub funny comedian Jason Manford, who so wants to be Peter Kay it hurts, and his hypnotically awful assistant Andi 'Err' Osho, who's no rabbit in the headlights... she's road kill in the highlights.

There's a team of 12 - TWELVE! - writers who've clearly watched The Daily Show, with Jon Stewart, but forgot to take any notes. The show hits the screens at five past 11. They start work on the script at about five to 11.

Admirable as it is to encourage young comics, they really should start using them again. Because the evidence suggests Britain hasn't got talent. It's just got a lot of deluded students who all think they're the next Sacha Baron Cohen.