Dragon's Den - Has it lost its spark?

I sat down to watch the new series of Dragon's Den last night and was a little disappointed with it, was anyone else?

It just seemed to be less about business and entrepreneurship and more about belittling the people who in the first place had shown a lot of courage going in there to pitch their ideas to highly successful and knowledgeable business people. Fair enough these people I’m sure have watched the show so know it’s not going to be an easy ride and they have put themselves in that position but I’m sure it would make more sense to give them constructive criticism rather than mocking them.

It’s a difficult enough task with the current economic climate to come up with a viable business model but to actually spend time and money to try to make this work is very courageous and the Dragon’s comments and discouragement could easily stifle the creativity of many of the inventors and entrepreneurs if they continue to treat it as a way of making ‘good TV’.

I could be wrong and it could be in the editing of the show that made it come across as more pantomime than business meeting but I hope that as the series progresses it becomes more about the pitch and business than entertainment value.

There seems to be a mentality on TV now that if it involves mocking someone or putting someone down then it is entertaining and it will be a ratings booster but I personally enjoy more learning about people’s success and am baffled by why TV now has such an emphasis on this type of show.

On this subject, the radio is currently on in the background and there is an advert for the “REGGAE REGGAE SUB” from Subway, a success story from Dragon’s Den – it shows that programmes like this can make a difference but for every success if there are ten demeaned individuals then is it really worth it?

I know that people may be thinking when reading this that it may sound like I’m saying that people should be encouraged and helped even if their idea is not feasible but that’s not what I mean. Obviously if someone has deluded ideas then they should be discouraged from pursuing it but all I mean is there surely must be a way of communicating this that doesn’t involve mocking or humiliating people?