So here’s a format that’s gaining traction around the world (it’s just sold to NBC in the US, and the BBC are apparently piloting it), John De Mol’s The Winner Is….

In it, 64 people duel off singing in front of a panel of judges (101 members of the audience in the original). After each duel, the contestants can decide to take money and leave the competition, putting thier opponent through to play for bigger money, or stay on and let the panel decide who goes through and who leaves with nothing. The top prize is a million.

Unlike The Voice which starts really high then drops throughout the series, ratings for the original Dutch and German shows suggest this starts low and then just sort of stay low. This appears to be De Mol doing his very own For The Rest Of Your Life.

Here’s some fun news, The Amazing Race Australia begins its second season on Wednesday.

I haven’t been able to watch TAR for such a long time – obvious editing, not interesting challenges, poor route decisions, but I really enjoyed TARA last year which avoided most of the original series’ pitfalls and added some fun ideas of its own. Although hopefully we won’t get a repeat of the entirely misjudged big wheel challenge from the last final.

Friend of the Bar ThatDarkSpark is doing a Summer project translating Wie Is De Mol series 10, from Japan, from Dutch into English on Youtube. Episodes will be going up irregularly.

Episode 1 is here. Click on CC in the bottom corner for the subtitles (it’s much quicker to do it this way than hardcoding them onto the video, apparently).

If you have watched the series, please don’t spoil, ta.

8pm, BBC1
Official ESC Live Stream

It’s here! Join Graham Norton as 26 countries from around the Eurovision battle it out in the contest literally nobody is referring to “the Superbowl of Singing”. Engelbert Humperdinck represents the UK with Love Will Set You Free, other ones to watch out for include the Russian Grannies singing in sixth spot, favourites Sweden in 17th and JEDWAAAARD! in 23rd.

If you want to give marks out of ten here, feel free.

If you don’t have a party to go to but want some amusing company anyway, friend of the Bar Tom Scott, Tim Jeffries and Matt Gray are ‘doing’ an alternative commentary with The Eurovision Hangout which sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

In other news, it’s Round 11 of the Bother Series of Poker tomorrow at 8pm – £5.50 entry, all welcome.

It would probably be remiss not to point out that we’re having a chat about Japan’s Battle For Money in the Exit Stage Right thread here. It’s Celebrity Adventure Dodgeball, basically.

Meanwhile it’s the TV Choice Awards 2012, most shows have been nominated. You can decide who wins.

In other news, 14-18 year olds who want to apply for Fort Boyard season three can write to fortboyard@foundationtv.co.uk for an application form.

… the answer is six foot eight. Or seven.

Although you wouldn’t be able to guess from photos as he has to stoop for all publicity photographs.

5-10% of BB’s daily hits come from people searching for the answer to that question.