VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 115 - TX DECEMBER 18 2022 - CHANNEL FOUR AT FORTY

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on December 4th 2022

Our old friend SANDY McGREGOR got in touch recently to point out that, amidst all of the ballyhoo and hullaballoo surrounding the centenary of one particular British broadcasting institution, it was easy for shows that talk about television like this one to forget that another television Channel had passed a significant milestone this year.

Because, on the very weekend the BBC was proudly marking one hundred years of existence, CHANNEL FOUR also reached an impressive and remarkable anniversary, with this young and once troublesome upstart becoming forty years old.

This is actually slightly worrying to me, as I remember dashing home on its very first evening of transmission, just so that I could see what seemed like a paradigm shift in British Broadcasting at the time, and, with apologies to CHANNEL FIVE and all that it does, witness the birth of perhaps the last great national broadcaster, and thereby discovered COUNTDOWN.

Those next few years would certainly try to give a brand new perspective on the world to its viewers. Often challenging, sometimes controversial, and sometimes looking as if they were making it up as they go along, CHANNEL FOUR staggered along, often with the derision of the tabloids ringing in its ears, until, very suddenly, it suddenly started to gain a certain amount of respectability and become very much the discerning channel of choice, at least amongst a more youthful demographic.

In its early years, and indeed throughout its entire history, this enfant terrible of national terrestrial television channels has challenged the status quo and tried to create a genuine alternative to what’s on the other side, and explore the alternative culture in a manner that outlying broadcasters like ourselves can only admire, and we genuinely appreciate the fact that it still does.

And, for making much of its back catalogue available, for free, streaming on ALL4, it is still pushing boundaries, which is much appreciated by the likes of us.

Programmes like THE WORD, THE TUBE, THE BIG BREAKFAST, VIC REEVES BIG NIGHT OUT, and BIG BROTHER seemed to change our relationship with television itself, and many high profile dramas, which existed for a long time alongside the challenging twenty-one year run of BROOKSIDE, like A VERY BRITISH COUP, GBH, QUEER AS FOLK, THIS IS ENGLAND, NATIONAL TREASURE and IT’S A SIN, have proved that, creatively, this has truly become a channel to be reckoned with.

There were also a whole raft of fine comedies; DESMONDS, SMACK THE PONY, FATHER TED, PEEP SHOW, and excellent current affairs programmes like DISPATCHES and the sublime CHANNEL FOUR NEWS still trying in its own way to speak truth to power.

Whilst CHANNEL FIVE did come along later on, it never felt quite as significant a moment to me, perhaps because it took a long time to become fully national, but also because television itself had changed since the birth of CHANNEL FOUR, and national free-to-air programming was under threat from the satellite, and later still, the streaming services.

These days, unfortunately, certain people amongst the POWERS THAT BE, perhaps some of whom tend to instinctively distrust those alternative or youthful demographics, have CHANNEL FOUR in their sights, and want to change the unique way it operates, despite not appearing to actually understand quite how it operates, and, as ever, when people with power who have vested interests get involved, it doesn’t seem as if they intend to change it for the better.

Anyway, SANDY quite rightly pointed out that we ought to do a programme about CHANNEL FOUR and put it out before the actual anniversary year was over, so here we are, trawling through another newspaper top forty list, to wish it all the best from all of us here at VISION ON SOUND.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition.