According to the Independent Online, a show dreamt up by Lolly Jackson of Teazers strip club fame, is headed for DStv screens soon. Stripteaze will be broadcast from 1 September at 23:00 on ActionX.

Now judging by the quality of your average Idols entry, I’m not entirely convinced of the merits of a show designed to find the striptease champion of South Africa. Like most reality TV shows, this could be entirely horrible. However, the shrill seriosity and earnest whining of the mother grundies, religious nuts, and other self-appointed moral guardians of society make such a proposal entirely worth it.

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One might have thought CNN would earn kudos for its innovative idea to host debates between makers of YouTube videos and presidential candidates in the US. Not so. According to this blogger, the notion that the station will select questions rather than basing the choice only on YouTube user ratings is no fair:

…if CNN has total editorial control over what videos are shown to the candidates, it’s pulling the rug out from under the so-called “user-generated content” revolution.

Who do CNN editors think they are, deciding what goes on CNN?

Update, 24 July 2007: The Media Research Centre appears to have found at least one reason why CNN wanted editorial control. The self-described media watchdog organisation looks for left-wing bias in the media, and in the CNN/YouTube debates, found plenty. The Democratic field got 17 questions from the left, compared to six from the right. It says if the forum on 17 September, when Republican candidates will face the video masses, does not show a similar three-to-one bias towards their conservative base, we might have to “conclude that CNN/YouTube debates will have served as little more than prime hours dedicated to advancing liberal causes.”

In the wake of communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri’s diktat that a single national mobile broadcasting network would be created in South Africa, based on the DVB-H standard, news from Europe appears to support her:

The European Commission Wednesday urged national governments and industry to take up DVB-H as the single standard for mobile television in the 27-nation bloc.

While Wednesday’s call isn’t a legal mandate to solely use DVB-H to broadcast TV over a wireless handheld device, the commission said it may in 2008 propose binding rules requiring the exclusive use of DVB-H in the European Union.

Amazingly, it goes on to claim:

The Brussels-based executive and regulatory branch of the E.U. “is not choosing a winner” but is simply giving “the market the clear signal that it should move voluntarily, but quickly, to a single standard.”

The DVB-H standard is based on Nokia Corp. (NOK) technology for mobile TV, which the commission said is the strongest standard for mobile TV.

Needless to say, the industry opposes such intervention. It believes the Eurocrats are disingenuous when they say the move will be “voluntary” and they’re not “choosing a winner”. Granted, there are drawbacks to the market fragmentation caused by competing standards, and competition is not guaranteed to pick the superior solution in the end. But there is no reason to believe that central planning is any better at choosing the right winner. Worse, eliminating competition can actually harm consumers because neither quality nor price will come under pressure. Why would anyone have a motive to improve DVB-H now that it’s been chosen as de jure winner? In agreeing that people can’t be trusted to make their own economic decisions, I guess Poison Ivy will feel vindicated by the mandarins of Europe.