Replace Lineker with Chiles in the driving seat

God bless sport! We are entrenched in that horrible sporting downtime between the end of the football season/Wimbledon and the start of the new football season. For sporting wives and girlfriends, it's a six-week period of almost unbroken serenity... until golf goes and spoils it all with the Open Championship. Brilliant!

A total of 4.7 million tuned in to BBC1 on Sunday evening at the climax of Golf: The Open, and the afternoon's coverage averaged 3.3 million/24.9% share. Interestingly, this confirms the theory that golf audiences fall when Tiger Woods is not playing. Last year's final round, which did include him, peaked at an audience of 6 million and averaged 3.7 million/25.7%.

If you are also a motor-sport enthusiast, divorce proceedings are possibly underway. Lewis Hamilton's win in the German Grand Prix (pictured) at Hockenheim on Sunday lunchtime on ITV1 was an example of Formula 1 at its exciting best, full of tactics and strategy and with a British winner to boot. The race was watched by 3.3 million viewers/32%.

Continuing the sporting theme, C4's Big Brother (surely more sport than entertainment) continues to deliver underwhelming audiences. Friday's eviction show barely scraped into the top 60 shows of the week, with 3.4 million/16% at 9pm. To put this into perspective, more people watched ITV1's Who Dares Sings (3.4 million/ 17%) on Saturday at 8.10pm. Who Dares is the sort of show Mary Whitehouse had in mind when she talked about the dangers tele-vision posed to society. Banality masquerading as entertainment. But forget society, what about the dangers that TV poses to itself? Much more of this milking of the talent show format and viewers will get cheesed off with the lot of it, including decent stuff like The X Factor.

Now, a plea to programme-makers everywhere. The economy is entering recession, house prices are plummeting. Any chance of some TV shows that lighten the mood? Just look at the list of top-rating programmes. Corrie, Emmerdale, EastEnders, not many laughs there. Then there's the 10 O'Clock News. Funny. Bonekickers? Casualty? Cars, Cops and Criminals anyone?

Thank heavens for You've Been Framed on ITV1. Saturday's show at 7.10pm attracted 4.2 million/24% share. As the nation tightens its collective belt, remember that entertainment doesn't have to be expensive: a dog riding a skateboard costs nothing. Baby gets scared by tortoise: gratis. Everyone thinks I'm mad, but I love You've Been Framed.

But there is cause for optimism for programme-makers and viewers alike. Original programming can be successful. A good example is The One Show, BBC1's magazine programme, which is delivering up to 4 million viewers a night in the traditional 7pm graveyard slot, up against Emmerdale on ITV1. And there is one significant reason for its success: Adrian Chiles.

Chiles could read a few discarded betting slips and find something witty to say. He is the natural successor to Des Lynam with his easy-going style. And he loves sport. How about Chiles presenting next year's Open? Move over Gary Lineker, I want to be entertained.
Adrian English is media director at Carat.
Philip Reevell is away