IAGREE entirely with M Hibbert (Letters, January 17) regarding poor TV programmes, especially over the Christmas period.

I think that television is the worst form of present-day entertainment. With monotonous regularity we have soaps, sit-coms and dramas, etc, thrown on our screens day in and day out.

Television is the actors' paradise and the graveyard for musicians and real entertainers.

There must be thousands and thousands of licence payers who are lovers of big bands, brass bands and variety shows and what do they get in return? -- pop, pop, pop, and the fact that they are subsidising other viewers.

It is time the powers-that-be got out of this dreadful rut and relieved us from this seemingly never-ending bore.

RON BARON, Lilac Grove, Clitheroe.