I made a point of watching the new series 'Tycoon' on ITV tonight. It features Peter Jones from Dragon's Den putting a group of people through their paces over a ten week period to see if they can set up a business.

I'm still deciding what I think of it in many ways - because a lot of it is very admirable. They are actually starting real businesses and facing all the challenges that come with that - but it's being filtered through the eyes of a TV production team who don't really get what's important.

So what we end up with is a lot of attention being spent on what the businesses are going to be called, and the sense that actually Peter has been working on a lot more important issues with them that we don't get to see. Some of them got their first sales tonight, and we didn't find out how they got the contact, how they made the approach, see the negotiation or anything.

And of course they have to try to ramp up a sense of tension. Will the two women walk out because Peter's suggested they change their name? Ooh, the tension as one guy is told he mustn't phone his wife so much. Then the walk down to the end of a pier to have a chat with Peter about the concerns he has.

Yet where is the real tension, the rollercoaster ride that people who have actually started businesses know is there - and is a great story to tell?

Telly people believe that the tension they need comes from these people's personal relationships (ie arguments and bitching) with each other, not the obstacles they face and overcome.

If they made a TV programme now about the first ascent of Everest, the programme wouldn't be about the people overcoming the adversity of nature to achieve a shared goal, a dream they all hold - it would be about any petty arguments they had with each other "Edmund's angry because John's snoring at night in the tent. He decides to confront him the next morning..." cut to argument in which one breaks down in tears and then tells his diary camera that he's not used to being spoken to like that and just wants to go home. Programme ends with cliffhanger: 'Is this the end of the expedition or can Edmund and John make up their differences? Find out next week'.

So I think Tycoon is one of the better business programmes on TV because it is allowing a bit of time and actually letting people have a go at starting businesses, but I think they've wasted a real opportunity by doing reality-TV-by-numbers instead of letting the real stories about the fascinating journey of entrepreneurship come out.