Well, I hope those po-faced judges are proud of themselves. Now that John Sergeant and his lovely Ginsters-pasty face have bowed to their carping and waltzed off Strictly Come Dancing, what are they left with? A show that's 90 per cent less interesting than it was last week and, I'd guess, a BBC paymaster that feels like killing them.

Lest you didn't know, Sergeant - aka the pig in sequins - resigned yesterday after relentless slagging from the judges. They said that he was lowering standards by dancing like a warthog in shiny trousers yet week after week being voted back on the show.

This was because the viewers at home liked him and picked up their phones and paid to vote. They even mounted a Facebook campaign to spread the word and keep him in. Call me an old fool, but I thought this was the whole point of public voting.

But, oh no. We know nothing. So the judges moved in and put us in our place. “Is it a ballroom dance competition or is it Sunday Night at the London Palladium, in which case we should just bring in some fire-eaters,” tutted Craig Revel Horwood. “This is a dance competition. It's not Strictly Come Entertainment.”

Er, how can we put this, Craig? Yes. It. Is. You are only there to keep viewers entertained while they eat their Pringles, just like Brucie in The Generation Game and the old man playing the spoons at the end of the pier were. So come down off your high horse.

The BBC doesn't care about advancing the fine art of ballroom dancing, only about stuffing The X Factor on ITV. If it did, it would be scouring the dance halls of Britain and we'd be watching Mrs Edna Clutterbuck and partner from Stoke-on-Trent, not Jodie Kidd. But then the programme would be called Come Dancing - which, if you remember, was taken off air because nobody watched it - and you'd be paid about £3.20 a show. If it was a proper dance competition John Sergeant wouldn't have been on it in the first place, because he looks like he'd much rather be getting stuck into a rum than a rumba. He's there because he's FUNNY.

Oh, who cares about such trivia, you may cry. Well, the BBC - deeply. Because, after the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand meltdown and at a time when a serious campaign is mounting to boycott the licence fee, this was about the best thing that could have happened to it. The “Sargy bounce” deflected attention away from Ross's potty mouth and reminded us what brilliant, clean, expletive-free Saturday night family entertainment the BBC is actually providing. It was precious positive publicity at a time of crisis.

We are forever moaning that there is no longer wholesome family programming which gets people talking on the bus and asking why it can't be like the 1970s (take off your rose-tinted specs: they weren't all that great. How often do you hear people yearning for the return of The Black and White Minstrel Show?)

But look - there's loads of good family entertainment around and now we have got people talking on the bus and agreeing that SCD is the best family show on telly. It's what TV executives pray for - a harmless, high-profile row with no need for resignations. Sergeant became the dancing pig that saved the BBC's bacon. Now he's just a dead golden goose. Well done, everyone.

Good, watercooler family entertainment is TV's holy grail, which is why Ant and Dec, who hardly ever swear and do old-fashioned double entendres instead, are paid half the national debt. Before you've had children you couldn't care less - it is, like, so square to be watching TV on a Saturday night anyway. But when you have people ranging from age 4 to 80 in your living room most Saturdays, as I do, you'd really rather the screen wasn't filled with scenes of decapitation or shagging.

In this country we actually have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to non-shagging, weekend family programming but we either take it for granted or barely notice because we are so busy harking after the good old days.

The finest of these - well, in our house anyway - is Harry Hill's TV Burp, a continuing work of genius loved by kids and adults alike which I can't understand the BBC not poaching. The X Factor too is touched with a hammy type of genius, notwithstanding the presence of Cheryl Cole who makes every other woman in Britain feel about as pretty as John Sergeant's bottom. And now we have a new series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, which I object to on cruelty-to-bugs grounds but will overlook this time just for the pleasure of watching Robert Kilroy-Silk make a pompous arse of himself.

Do we not realise how blessed we are to have entertainment that offends no one yet still manages to be edgy? Do those judges on Strictly Come Dancing not see how they shot themselves in the foot with a great, fat Uzi? People don't tune in to see them, but to see the people who entertain them best.

Ironically, Sergeant was making their jobs more secure because ratings, had he stayed, would have been sky-high until the end of the series. As it is there will almost certainly be a viewers' boycott and a decamp to The X Factor. Queen Cilla of the Leather Trousers has already declared herself to be “absolutely disgusted”.

Can I suggest that if the judges have such a dim view of public opinion they don't in future accept a wedge of licence-fee money to appear on a show in which the public are invited to vote? (Will viewers who voted for Sergeant now be reimbursed, I wonder?) If they check the smallprint they'll find that if the viewers don't pay to vote then there kind of won't be a show.

Arlene Phillips said this week that she would be “desolate” if Sergeant won. Desolate - really, Arlene? Just wait until next Saturday, when Sergeant has had his last dance and you are left performing to three pensioners and a cat. Then you'll be sorry you roasted the pig.

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