I don't know whether it's growing up, it's the times that I now watch or because the quality has washed away but I almost never find any TV worth watching. There are a few gems, West Wing, Shameless, Nip-Tuck, Desperate Housewives, and Newsnight but in general, TV has become about as interesting as a rainy day at Wimbledon.

Our broadcasting is designed to appeal to as many people as possible. Success is measured by ratings and whilst you can please some of the people some of the time, modern broadcasting shows shows just how painless it is to bore most of the people all of the time. It's somewhat ironic that as commoditised LCD screens bring larger and brighter viewing to our sitting rooms, the Lowest Common Denominator sees to it that as big and crisp as they are, it's seldom worth even switching them on.

The problem is that programming for ratings suffers from only asking half the question. "Would you like to watch another series of Losers Lives / TV's Most Repeated Moments / DIY Drudgery / Holiday Reps (nuff said)?". Sure if my brain is too addled from a days work to make it worth switching the TV off and opening a book I'll sit and watch some tanned teenagers drink their last summers of freedom away in Majorca.

Finish the question though. Ask me how much I want to yet another person who couldn't be bothered to get off their bottom for five years cry as they see their decrepit, Croydon kitchen transformed by some cheeky chappies with matching sweatshirts into yet another five grand assortment of Magnet-mediocrity? Take a guess.

Ask me how much I want to see the West Wing though. Enough to shell out thirty pounds to pre-order the puppy months in advance? You bet. Enough to avoid watching it on TV for fear of getting out of sync - absolutely. 24? Ditto. How much do I want to watch Desperate Housewives? Enough that I'll plan my evenings arrangements to make sure I'm back in time for it (well, to an extent - I'm picky, not a gimp).

For the thousands of channels out there, it is ironic that we live in an age of TV-communism with a few controllers deciding what they think we the unwashed wish to watch. I want capitalism. I want show makers to be rewarded for being brilliant instead of precisely average. I want to know that when the next Aaron Sorkin emerges he knows that if he never gets the success he dreams of, it will have been for lack of quality not mediocrity.

Podcasting and videocasting have allowed content creators to flourish without a mainstream network. Home-brewed shows pull in thousands of listeners without a penny spent on marketing or management. Almost all the pieces are in place for content producers to go direct to their customers.

For quality and variety to really soar though, producers need to be able to go full time on their offerings and that means that they need income. Once this happens we will let small-time screen and film makers go direct and once that happens we will all be richer.

Right now, 1 x passion < 10 x apathy = an acceptable revenue. Let 100 x apathy < 1 x passion = an excellent revenue and let there be something to watch.