Hello, my name is Jo and I am a telly addict. I used to watch anything and everything the broadcasters had to offer from breakfast until bedtime but now, thanks to good old auntie Beeb and her compassionate compatriots at ITV, I am beginning to kick the habit.

I really can't thank the powers-that-be in programming enough for airing so much garbage that even a dedicated telly fan like myself considers going cold turkey.

Now if I need a quick fix I have to turn to those hardhearted programme pushers at Channel 4 for a swift hit of some pure, uncut US-grade stuff - Frasier or ER perhaps - that hits the spot immediately and leaves you with a pleasant glow for hours afterwards.

Unlike its colleagues at ITV who steadfastly stand by me in my attempt at abstinence by putting on non-stop dross from breakfast with cuddly curmudgeon Eammon Holmes until Judge Judy passes sentence at four in the morning, occasionally the Beeb tests my willpower with decent shows.

But I'm pleased to report that in the end it never actually forgets who pays the licence fee. It might offer the odd titbit of tantalising telly but it always makes sure there is no real chance of me becoming addicted again by moving the programmes around the schedule and pushing them back later and later every week until it does what I like to call its "Seinfeld and Sanders shuffle" by shoving its best shows on at 1am every other Tuesday on BBC 2.

If you think I'm being a tad unfair just look at tonight's feast of visual treats on BBC 1. At seven there's a holiday programme (yawn) followed by soap (double yawn with extra stretching). Then, if the undiluted pleasure of it all has not already sent you into a coma, along comes the inevitable hospital drama, but don't get too excited, it's only Holby City (a programme which has been unimaginatively renamed in our household) so it's less likely to be a drama than a yawnarama. After this comes a home makeover programme presented by a pair of teeth with a Scottish accent before we are finally presented with the sad, grey icing on the stodgy, over-sweetened cake, a docusoap.

Needless to say, I won't be tuning in tonight. My other half decorated the living room over Easter so I'll be putting my feet up and watching the paint dry instead.

As a recovering telly addict, I'm not entirely unhappy that the BBC has decided to rid its schedules of anything that might be deemed challenging, funny, dramatic, intelligent or even vaguely interesting, but what about the millions who just can't break the habit, what can they do to improve the quality of the merchandise they are pushed?

Maybe, just maybe, the answer lies in Colchester. For it is here that a rickety old battle-axe by the name of Mary Whitehouse awaits the nation's call.

She may be 90 years old and unable to walk but you can bet she's just dying for another scrap with the broadcasters before she pops her clogs.

All right so it might be an uphill struggle to convince the woman who thought Dave Allen was indecent and who condemned Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven as filth that what modern viewers need is regular injections of exactly this kind of intelligent yet entertaining programming, but it's certainly worth a try.

Maybe if we promise her a free swing at Greg Dyke during a live punch-up from Broadcasting House, she'll go for it.

Then at the very least the Beeb will have something remotely exciting to show on Grandstand between the tiddlywinks world championships and the live ferret racing (as opposed to dead ferret racing which is shown on Channel 5).