Have I got old news for you

One of the beauties of the internet is its immediacy - no sooner has something happened, than we can all find out about it on the web.

Like the earth-shattering news I've just read that Cheryl Cole IS going to be a judge on the US X Factor. Phew! What a relief, I was worried for a bit that our Chezza might not be 'worth it' after all.

Television shows, unless they're live, don't have such an instant response. Even one like Channel 4's Ten O'Clock Live is largely scripted in advance.

One of the best, Have I Got News For You, is filmed a day or two before transmission, which works pretty well.

But what I can't understand is the increasingly habit of repeating 'topical' shows. And not just to fill the Dave and BBC3 airways, which are full of old episodes of Mock The Week, HIGNFY and Russell Howard's Good News, but also on the main channels.

One of the barmiest bit of scheduling I've seen recently is repeating an episode of Frank Skinner's Opinionated tomorrow night on BBC2 at 10pm.

If they wish, viewers can watch the Black Country funnyman chewing over 'the week's news' - ie the news from April 30 2010. His guests, Lee Mack and Sarah Millican, are funny, but why should we want to hear them talk about things that happened a whole year ago?

I could understand more if this was a late-night repeat, but a primetime slot - and tagged on to the end of the latest series as if to fool us into thinking it's a new episode - is a waste of airtime.

Topical shows should be just that, so stop fobbing us off with old news.