ADMIT it. You watched The Brit Awards, or were at least tempted to, for one reason.

In the hope of a calamity on the scale of Madonna’s mid-performance staircase tumble 12 months ago.

No fear of that this time, though. Capes were banned.

And, alas it seemed, so was entertainment throughout 160 turgid minutes.

You can put much of that down to the bland state of the music business that flooded the ceremony with wallpaper paste, like James Bay, Justin Bieber, half of One Direction and Simon Pegg introducing Best Group Coldplay.

What a time to be alive.

But it’s partly because of ITV’s decision to make Ant & Dec hosts again.

In Saturday Night Takeaway’s studio and I’m A Celebrity’s treehouse they’re unparalleled, the best broadcasters of their era.

But in the cavernous O2 Arena they fell flat and could do nothing to salvage the event.

Give Ant a flame-thrower and you get a few light-hearted moments.

Give it to someone mildly unhinged like Adele, though, and things could have got very interesting.

Memories of Mick Fleetwood and Sam Fox dictate, however, that risks are not to be taken at The Brits.

The only moment of jeopardy was that nearly-naked Goth gate-crashing one of the hosts’ links.

And even that fizzled out into nothing. I wanted security tearing down the aisles and rugby tackling her to the ground.

But no. She just walked off again. And that was that.

Aside from the procession of winners who hadn’t been told where the camera was, there was just one major technical glitch — the bleep machine operator managing to mute precisely the wrong parts of Adele’s tearful third speech.

Quite why ITV felt the need to censor bad language long after the watershed in any case, I’ve no idea.

But it’s a prime example of how safe The Brits have become.

Ant & Dec, at Nick Grimshaw’s table, didn’t even asked him about The X Factor or former boss and ITV’s puppet-master Simon Cowell, what with him in the room.

And the nearest Ant came to bringing pop stars down a peg or two was when he said, tongue firmly in cheek: “Next up is the award for International Male and to present it, three men we know as Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire.”

Oh but don’t we, though? Good old Diplo, Jillionaire and Walshy Fire. (No, me neither.) New Zealand singer Lorde did at least show Lady Gaga how to do a David Bowie tribute, after the American’s Grammys disaster.

But Annie Lennox and Gary Oldman’s speeches were way too haughty and inaccessible for the occasion.

Lennox called him “a quintessential visionary” and “the ultimate iconoclast”, while Oldman found himself saying: “The world lost a man and an artist of transcendent talent,” before adding: “In his very unique way he reminded us to never take ourselves too seriously.”

While taking himself too seriously.

Last word goes to Adele, though, which isn’t always the case at this event, having won Best Album: “I didn’t get cut off!”

Yes, and nobody got catapulted down a staircase.

Progress, I suppose.

Spudulikes…

BBC1’s outstanding The Night Manager.

First Contact: Lost Tribe of the Amazon.

Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

Room 101’s Frank Skinner: “My head looks like a lightbulb. It looks like my neck has had a really good idea.”

Let’s Play Darts For Sport Relief, with Katherine “Moose Knuckles” Ryan accidentally scoring a bullseye on her first throw and the announcer’s optimistic call to Greg “The Abominable Throwman” Davies: “Greg, you require 119…” “Twenty-two.”

The Voice producers failing to hold back Bernie Clifton as the final auditionee for Will.i.am to have to take.

And The Jump’s subtitles writer mishearing Davina McCall say “moguls”: “Our celebrities are going head to head in motels.” Look, I know they’ve had broken bones but that’s surely overdoing the health and safety.

Spuduhates…

BBC1 turning its 10.45pm weeknight slot into a BBC3 cast-offs wasteland.

The Voice producers failing to hold back Bernie Clifton as the final auditionee for Will.i.am to have to take.

A public marriage proposal tarnishing an otherwise great Saturday Night Takeaway return.

EastEnders forcing Lee to have sex with Ben’s phantom-pregnant girlfriend Abi to continue its mindless obsession with secret parentage.

The Great British Sex Survey turning out to be 95 minutes of dull stats. (Phwoarrr!)

The Jump’s Heather Mills blaming all her defeats on equipment and failing to even attempt the live moguls race.

And This Morning’s Rylan Clark rewriting history: “I came from X Factor. It’s the show I started on.” Because he’d rather we forgot the show he actually started on — runner-up on Signed By Katie Price.