Word is that the BBC has purchased the rights to broadcast the Japanese TV show Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Deshita, which starts the Tunnels comedy duo of Kinashi Noritake and Ishibashi Takaaki.

The BBC is understood to have produced 11 episodes of the show. But, like other foreign media buyers who have dabbled in Japanese television concepts, it has not bought the rights to everything on the Tunnelsshow. Japanese television remains a preserve of sexism, ageism, exploitation and bullying that continue to astonish most foreigners exposed to it. “Major foreign TV broadcasters rarely use programmes produced in Japan in their entirety,” a Fuji TV official admits.

The BBC’s deal comes at a time when even long-term enthusiasts of Japanese television agree that standards are daily plumbing new depths. “Just when you think Japanese television is not going to go any sicker or lower,” says W. M. Penn, a television critic for the Yomiuri newspaper, “it goes one sicker and lower.”

But after years of insularity and pure domestic focus, Fuji Television is starting to realise the international commercial value that its vast menu of lowbrow entertainment now commands. In 2004 it sold a cooking contest idea to the US that became marketed as the Iron Chef.

The BBC was forced on to the defensive last year to deny reports that it planned to dumb down its shows after discovering that lower-income families were not tuning in. BBC research allegedly showed that high earners were more likely to watch its channels, while its staff felt that programmes such as Panorama were “too serious”.

Thanks to Mr. Pink.