Channel Four At 25

Two major media institutions - the Today programme and Channel Four - are celebrating significant landmarks at the moment, and as I wasn’t around for the birth of the former 50 years ago, the latter’s arrival into the broadcasting world in 1982 is a little easier for me to write about.

I guess my interest in the media must have begun relatively early, as I can clearly remember, at 13 years of age, rushing home from a friend’s house for 445pm to catch the opening moments of this new channel, and then trying to work out exactly what Countdown had to recommend about it.

In this age of multi-dimensional media platforms, it’s hard to think back to the excitement that finally having a use for the spare button underneath ITV on your telly created, to just how rough and ready it all was to begin with and to quite how much controversy the programming choices caused in C4’s early years.

Over the last quarter of a century, the enfant terrible of British television has grown up into a young adult of mixed tastes – some extremely admirable, others still highly dubious – and still exhibits the power to shock now and again, though this has been diluted to a degree by outside influences, such as the Internet and more questionable satellite-based broadcasters.

C4’s future, and especially its structure and funding, remain up for debate, but it’s fair to say that, from humble beginnings, it has played a major role in pushing back the boundaries and helping television mature to its current state.

Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I’ll leave you to decide for yourselves, but in the meantime, here is my personal (and probably very biased) view of the top ten highlights and lowlights of Channel Four’s first 25 years – all comments and alternative suggestions welcome!

Highlights
• Father Ted – the funniest sitcom about three Irish Catholic priests in a remote rural island parish ever made - only Channel Four could have dreamed of commissioning it, and for that decision alone, I am forever in their debt
• The Comic Strip – a proving ground for all sorts of now-household names, and the memory of Peter Richardson playing Al Pacino playing Arthur Scargill will live with me forever
• Film Four – responsible for funding innumerable successful films, from The Crying Game and The Madness Of King George to Shallow Grave and Four Weddings & A Funeral, in an era when the British film industry as regular in the intensive care ward
• Chris Evans – depending on your opinion, he could equally reside in my second list, but pretty much everything he did on C4 was fresh, original and ahead of its time
• Channel Four News – consistently excellent and garlanded with awards at almost every turn
• Not being afraid to take the flack (mostly from the Daily Mail) over tackling controversial subjects where others shied/shy away, and dedicating huge swathes of airtime to major events, such as the Hajj pilgrimage, that others simply can’t offer
• Brookside – not to my personal tastes, but worthy of mention for both introducing Anna Friel to a grateful male population, and bringing common-or-garden swearing to a prime-time TV audience without making a big deal about it. According to a recent Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/oct/29/channel4.mondaymediasection, after the first ever episode on that opening night, “viewers complained about six ‘bloodies’, one ‘Christ’, one ‘piss off’, one ‘frigging hell’, two ‘dickheads’, two ‘pissings’, a ‘bugger’ and a ‘bollocks’.� Fairly tame stuff by 21st century standards, but ‘the past is another country.’
• www.channel4.com – blazed a trail for the media when the world was beginning to get online
• The Tube – born in the north east, incredibly influential, much missed (and proved to me that I wasn’t the only person in the world called Julian…)
• Channel Four HQ – the most exciting contemporary building in England (imho), especially when viewed at night:
http://www.rsh-p.com/render.aspx?siteID=1&navIDs=1,4,23,703&showImages=detail&showParent=true&imageID=453

Lowlights
• First and foremost, and by a significant distance, Jade Goody, and all who sail in her – the standard bearer for celebrity nonentities everywhere – and speaking of which….
• Any variant of Big Brother – OK, so it changed TV as we know it, but can we leave it now, please? Pretty please?
• The Red Triangle series – helpfully pointing a generation of male teenagers towards a succession of impenetrable foreign films in the hope of seeing a few seconds of flesh, violence or both
• Endless ’100 best’ list programmes – mildly diverting now and again, but incredibly lazy television (but what are you dong here? –Ed.)
• The Word – generally appalling, lowest common denominator yob TV (“Let’s get the alcoholic Oliver Reed drunk, and then spy on him in his dressing room with a secret camera� – what a brave and exciting idea, guys!), punctuated, admittedly, by the occasional musical gem
• Keith Chegwin presenting one-off quiz show Naked Jungle, er, naked - if ever there was something deserving of a red triangle….
• Network 7 – “News is Entertainment. Entertainment is News" - more painfully self-conscious than the audience of 13-16 year olds at which it was briefly aimed
• Gordon Ramsay – the price paid for making swearing on TV more acceptable. An episode of The F Word mirroring a recent Peter Serafinowicz skit where a Ramsay-like kitchen tyrant is beaten to death with saucepans by his chefs and then served in his restaurant as part of a casserole might be worth watching, mind…
• Making characters into caricatures – identikit ‘evil genius’ Dr Gunther von Hagens conducting his Autopsy For Beginners in a nice hat leads the way, but some of the characters in shows like Wife Swap, Brat Camp and How Clean Is Your House (and even BB voiceover merchant and professional north-easterner Marcus Bentley) aren’t too far behind
• Jade Goody – did I mention her at all?

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