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Channel 4 has come clean and told the world that it is feeling the squeeze of the new digital landscape by revealing it’s first loss making year since 1992. More tellingly it’s share of the overall viewing figures fell from 9.8% in 2006 to 8.7%.

So the Chief Executive Andy Duncan will be going cap in hand to the taxpayer, asking for an extra £150 million to “invest in new programming”. It is easy to forget that despite the adverts and the French porn the channel still has a public service remit and is essentially a non-profit making exercise.

So far so dull, but is the channel being ever so slightly disingenuous regarding the apparently parlous state of its finances? It seems the truth of the matter is that they’ve deliberately overspent, knowing a review of their finances was coming, to try to con the bean counters in to forking over more cash.

So what? I hear you cry. Channel 4 is great; it is like the cool older brother of BBC1, not the geeky BBC2 that lives by itself and hasn’t ever had a girlfriend, I’m just saying…or the cool kid sniggering at the knees up Mother Brown antics of ITV. The less said about Channel 5 the better.

But is it? What exactly is the point of Channel 4 in 2008? Ten years ago I would have said comedy, drama, news, documentaries. French films at 2 am that may well have a teton or two. In no particular order, my list of the worst five Channel 4 programmes of the last few years would include:

• Big Brother (and its bastard celebrity offspring). For this alone Channel 4 will rot in hell. It is entirely worthless, has ruined conversations in offices everywhere and has created a new class of ‘celebrity’: the reality star. Oh, and that Geordie voice over can fuck itself too.
• Deal or No Deal. I have a theory that this show was the result of drunken bet with each participant trying to out do the next in awfulness (It’ll just be fuckwits opening boxes, there’ll be no skill involved, it will go on for hours, Noel Edmonds will present it etc. etc.). Proof that Satan walks the Earth.
• Hollyoaks. Oh God. Seemingly an attempt to encourage paedophilia, this show is particularly irksome as each soft-porn ridden episode is followed by an invite to ‘Call now if you’ve been affected by any of the issues in tonight’s programme’ which always has me screaming, ‘Yes. I have. I now want to kill everybody. Where do I send the text?’
• Come Dine With Me. Invite strangers round your house and cook them some food. Get drunk. Utter, utter cunts.
• Richard & Judy, Paul O’Grady et al. Television to kill yourself to. They contribute nothing and dominate the long dark tea time of the soul. Toss on stilts.

Oh I know, it’s not all bad. There are still some reasons to watch. But whatever it had it seems to be losing and doesn’t seem to know how to get it back. Hooray for Countdown (Whitely version only), Father Ted, Black Books, Brass Eye, the Crystal Maze, the Ashes win in 2005 and best of all, the Channel 4 News. Gawd bless them all. But where will the next success come from?

Tellingly Peter Bazalgette, ex-chief executive of Endemol UK and a former Channel 4 board member, said the broadcaster should be privatised but retain its PSB duties.

If that is the future then the digital age may well herald the death of one of the last genuinely interesting voices in popular culture. The need for quality programming is greater than ever, what is uncertain is if Channel 4 has the will to provide it.

 

 

 

Though admittedly this was classic telivision... [ed]