Mark Daniels: Britain's Got Publicans

Have you noticed how many "Celebrity Professions" there are these days?

Thanks to the wonders of modern television, and our national obsession with Reality TV, any number of estate agents, antique sellers, cleaners, interior designers and zoo keepers are household names.

Sometimes it seems that you can't get through a day without somebody referring to a Celebrity Chef - to the point that it is the chosen career path of my seven-year-old: "I want to be a chef on the telly, Daddy," is his favourite line, and he's forever nattering on about Iron Chef Judy Joo. Oh, for the days when all kids wanted to be were firemen...

But there aren't any Celebrity Publicans out there (and, for the purposes of this argument, we aren't including to Peggy Mitchell, Liz McDonald, or Diane Sugden). Of course, Jay Smith has valiantly done his bit on backwater satellite channels to highlight the need for a good community pub, but aside from well-known soap opera characters, it's a struggle to put names to real-life superstar publicans if you're not part of the industry.

And I think we're missing out on something here. What better way to bring the pub back to the heart of its community than making it popular with the reality television folk?

Nobody can deny that Al Murray does a great job of entertaining people, we all know Chris Evans owns a pub and Neil Morrissey had a bash at it too, but what about bringing the pub to the television?

Simon Cowell wants to spice up politics and the electoral debate did wonders for Nick Clegg's image, but maybe we could bring all that to our industry.

Game shows, Big Brother style voyeurism, competitions ... the human element.

I once wrote about Location, Location, Location and mused that Kirsty Allsop must fight to bite her tongue when a client complains that their partner can't seem to fall in love with the house they so desperately want.

If we could bring the human element of the public house to the television, into everybody's living room, perhaps we could work to raise the status of pubs amongst our communities in a way that's never been tried before.

It might bring old, tired pubs back to life, might help save our industry and it might teach people more about social and responsible drinking and that there's more to alcohol than cheap vodka from Tesco. It might, just might, also make somebody look at their television remote control and their cheap can of lager and think, "actually, I fancy going to the pub with my mates."

So this is my pitch: a Reality TV style show about Britain's pubs, their licensees, their families, the staff. Even the pub dog. Everyone would love it. I even have a title for it:

I'm a Publican ... let me stay in here!