SOMETHING will have to be done if television viewers are to stay with what was billed as the biggest bout since the Iron Maiden ko'd the Cart Horse in '79. No Rumble in the Jungle this, but instead of an exhibition of how not to get blood on the canvas.

Given that it is said to be all about a General Election, where are the hopefuls setting out their stall and coming across with the hard sell? Not on television, certainly: you can bet your 32-inch screen on that.

What is without doubt is that, if this has been the parties punching their weight on the box, they had better go into strict training for the fisticuffs scheduled for five years' hence.

As an example of how the blows have failed to go below the belt, let us take the start of the week when John was seen, silent over a fish supper, Tony popped up with children doing homework in a football field and Paddy said something on the steps of a bus.

What was to be taken from all that except that John likes fish, Tony likes children and Paddy has a life-time season ticket?

The normally heavyweight Channel 4 News generally got round to the election only after finding what the trade calls ''sexier'' topics to lead on, such as moles at the Maze. So anxious was Channel 4 to inject at least a spritz of glitz into the lack-lustre performance of the parties, that it commissioned its own opinion poll based on the sale of chocolate caricatures of the party leaders.

On that showing Major had more people prepared to pay to bite his head off. Remember, this is an adult programme.

Highest entertainment score of the week fell to ITN's News at Ten, which showed how hopelessly out of hand the election campaign has already become. This not entirely revelatory coup was pulled off by reporting that, while John and Tony had agreed to tilt at each other on the field of education, their seconds had left the arena to biff a separate agenda.

Puffing like winded warhorses, Michael and Gordon swung their maces at each other over the unions and something called ''recognised units'', hamstrung in argument only by an apparent lack of fact.

As the week drew to a close it was disclosed that television audiences are shrinking, folk now preferring to find their thrills in museums rather than on the small screen.

This should come as no surprise to John and Tony, Michael and Gordon who have done so much in recent days to put stuffed puffins and fossils to the fore.

Given what has been dished up so far, even a wide angle shot of the back of a battle bus could have its charms.