Channel 4 programming

Channel 4 was one of the first "publisher-broadcaster" stations in the world. All of its programming is produced by other companies; it exists only to fund, broadcast and distribute its programmes — a stipulation which is included in its licence to broadcast. It was also one of the first broadcasters to put its name on the introduction or end credits of programmes that it did not produce, a practice that is now widespread. More significantly, it also began a trend of owning the copyright and distribution rights of the programmes it aired, in a manner that is similar to the major Hollywood studios' ownership of television programs that they did not directly produce. Thus, although Channel 4 does not produce programmes, many are seen as belonging to it.

Channel 4 also pioneered the concept of stranded programming, where seasons of programmes following a common theme would be aired and promoted together; the 4 Mation season, for example, showed innovative animation.

Factual

Channel 4 also has a strong reputation for history programmes and real-life documentaries. It has also courted controversy, for example by broadcasting live the first public autopsy to be carried out in the UK for 170 years, carried out by Gunther von Hagens in 2002, or the 2003 one-off stunt Derren Brown Plays Russian Roulette Live.

Its critically acclaimed news service, Channel 4 News, is supplied by ITN whilst its long-standing investigative documentary, Dispatches, causes perennial media attention.

When the television chef Jamie Oliver could not reach a deal with the BBC after his contract with them expired in December, 2002, Channel 4 took him up. Since this happened, Jamie Oliver has created a number of documentaries such as Jamie's Kitchen, Jamie's School Dinners, which was broadcast to coincide with his campaign to improve the quality of school dinners, and Jamie's Great Escape.

FourDocs

Main article: FourDocs

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FourDocs is an online service from Channel 4. FourDocs is a broadband documentary "channel" that celebrates all aspects of the documentary genre. It allows users to upload their own documentaries to the website for others to watch. The videos need to be 4 minutes long.

FourDocs

Entertainment

Channel 4 pioneered the concept of 'after the pub' television, with series such as Who Dares Wins, Tonight with Jonathan Ross, Friday Night Live and The Word broadcast in the 10–11pm slot. Channel 4 is also noted for the screening of Big Brother. Based on the original Dutch format, the UK version has attracted massive press attention as well as various degrees of criticism for each of its series from 2000 to date.

In October 2005, Channel 4 began broadcasting the UK version of Endemol's worldwide smash game show Deal or No Deal. Despite being broadcast at a relatively slow time slot — 4.15pm weekdays and originally 4.25pm Saturdays — the show, presented by Noel Edmonds, on some occasions has been the most-watched show on the channel. The Saturday edition of the show has had a spell in a prime-time slot, and in June 2006 the show's popularity led to "Double Deal Week" where a second show at 8pm was broadcast each day for a week.

The highest audience ever attained by Channel 4 was 13.8 million for the final part of the mini-series A Woman of Substance, broadcast on 4 January 1985.

Since then, and excluding films, the channel's highest rating was 10 million viewers for the final of the third series of Big Brother on 27 July 2002. The channel's daily share of viewing on that date was 22.8%, then the highest recorded by the station. This record was beaten on Monday 12 September, 2005, the final day of the 2005 Ashes, when the channel's daily share of viewing in UK homes was recorded as 23.2%. This was also the first time that Channel 4 had been the highest-rating UK television station across a 24-hour period.

Comedy

Channel 4 has traditional had a good reputation for its comedy programming. The early days saw screenings of The Comic Strip Presents, a highly innovative series of short one-off comedy films produced by a rotating line-up of alternative comedians, such as Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Cook, Peter Richardson, and Alexei Sayle. The Tube and Friday Night Live also launched the careers of a number of alternative comedians. More recently, Channel 4 has aired such comedy shows as Brass Eye, The Mark Thomas Product, Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights, That Peter Kay Thing, Drop the Dead Donkey, Desmond's, Green Wing, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Smack the Pony, Max and Paddy's Road To Nowhere, So Graham Norton, South Park, Black Books, Bo' Selecta, My Name is Earl, The IT Crowd, and Father Ted.

For years, Channel 4 has also broadcast episodes of the most popular situation comedies from the United States on Friday nights. In 2004, Friday-night sitcoms on Channel 4 included Friends, Sex and the City, and Will & Grace.

Since 5 November 2004, Channel 4 has had the British terrestrial rights to show new-to-terrestrial episodes of The Simpsons, in addition to several of the classic seasons, rights that had previously been held by the BBC since the show started airing on British terrestrial (1996). This was considered a major scoop for Channel 4, which was reported to have paid £700,000 for each episode and which began promoting The Simpsons nearly a month in advance, using 18-frame teasers for the show (made up of various characters' faces being created using different-coloured Channel 4 logos) to lead into commercial breaks from October 8 onward. When it began airing in November 2004, seasons 2–5 of the show were repeated weekdays at 6pm, with new and newer episodes from seasons 11 and 12 on Fridays at 9pm. From January 2006, C4 lost the rights to seasons 2 and 3 to Sky, but showed Season 6 in November 2005. More new episodes were scheduled to begin airing in the post-watershed slot (Season 13) from 25 August 2006. However, it has been criticised heavily for its slight censorship of the programme during its 6:00pm slot, such as removing some swear words and even cutting scenes with mild sexual activity.

In January 2005, Channel 4 gained the rights to show the hugely popular U.S. comedy Desperate Housewives. It became a ratings landslide, with six million viewers and third place in the ratings.

In 2006, Channel 4 gained rights to various new American TV shows like The Class, and in 2007 it gained rights to Ugly Betty. Plus a second series of The Charlotte Church Show aired. Ugly Betty season one continues to air on Channel 4 at 9:00pm, with successful ratings.

• See also Entertainment at channel4.com

Friday Nights have traditionally been used by the station for airing much of its popular comedy, with the time-slot becoming synonymous with the stations' comedy output, with Channel 4 Friday Comedy being promoted as a brand, and most of the above programming being premiered on this slot.

Some of the much advertised programmes The Friday Night Project and 18 Stone of Idiot were not successful with the ratings with 18 Stone of Idiot being not being recommissioned for a second series but Johnny Vegas wanted it not be recommissioned and is working with further projects with Channel 4. Another show is Balls Of Steel in which comedians do a range of pranks on the public and celebrities including the famous soaking of Tom Cruise and Sharon Osbourne, both of them not seeing that funny with Sharon Osbourne throwing a bucket of water over the cameraman and damaging the video camera.

Channel 4 has been criticised over the years for repeating too many American sitcoms as the channel was notorious for showing far too many repeats of Friends on a terrestrial channel rather than producing new British sitcoms as Friends was shown in the 9.00pm slot for nearly 10 years and always slated in Dead Ringers on BBC Two.

Drama

On 4 November 2003, Channel 4 screened its final episode of Brookside, a soap opera which had run for the 21 years since the channel started.

American drama is a key part of Channel 4's portfolio, initially with NYPD Blue and ER. These were followed by Without a Trace, The Sopranos, The West Wing and Six Feet Under. Many of these programmes are shown (and notably edited) for their Sunday morning T4 slot.

In August 2005, Channel 4 started showing the US TV show Lost after a lengthy advertising campaign that included a 60-second commercial shot by David LaChapelle, that featured the cast and cost over £1 million becoming the most expensive advertisement produced in the UK. This gamble seems to have paid off, however; the pilot episode was watched by over 6 million viewers, placing it second in the overall ratings for the channel for that year, Big Brother securing the top spot. However, in October 2006 Channel 4 suffered a blow when BSkyB acquired the rights to the third and fourth seasons of Lost.

T4

Main article: T4 (Channel 4)

T4 is a separately identified strand carried on Channel 4 (and briefly on E4 until 2002). It consists of programming in the mornings seven days a week for an age range of around 16–25.

Music, soaps and US comedy shows all feature as part of the schedule on T4. Famous programmes include the Hollyoaks Omnibus, The OC, One Tree Hill, Will & Grace and Friends, with popular US animation Futurama airing weekend mornings too (although Futurama is heavily edited to fit the allocated timeslot). The final season of the hit US drama show Charmed was showing on T4 every Sunday, repeats were shown on the following Saturday, after five lost in a bidding war with Channel 4.. The most recent American import Ugly Betty even though episodes premiere on a Wednesday night on E4 at 9pm and premiere on Analogue television on a Friday night at 9pm. These are repeated on T4 on a Sunday beginning between 3.30pm and 4.00pm

Schools Programming

Channel 4 is obliged to carry schools programming as part of its remit and licence.

ITV Schools on Channel 4

Since 1957 ITV had produced schools programming which became an obligation. In 1987, five years after the new minority station was launched, the IBA afforded ITV free carriage of these programmes during Channel 4's, then largely unused, daytime hours. This arrangement allowed the ITV companies to fulfil their obligation to provide schools programming, whilst being able to use ITV proper to air more popular programming, which unlike schools programmes would provide advertising revenue. During the times in which schools programmes were aired, Channel 4 was effectively operated by ITV, with Central Television providing most of the continuity, and play-out originating from Birmingham. Thus ITV Schools on Channel 4 was effectively a separate station broadcasting on Channel 4's frequencies. Even some regional schools programming was aired, in contrast with Channel 4's lack of any regional variations to its programming.

See Also: List of 'ITV Schools on Channel 4' programmes.

Channel 4 Schools / 4Learning

After the re-structuring of the station in 1993, ITV's obligations to provide such programming on Channel 4's airtime passed to Channel 4 itself, and the new service became Channel 4 Schools, with the new corporation administering the service and commissioning its programmes, some still from ITV, others from independent producers.

In 2000, the service was renamed 4Learning and as of today the service has diversified into pre-school and adult programmes, with much of its content also available in text and video form via the internet, or through DVD sales. Its programming runs to around 400 hours per annum. One of its well known programmes is The Hoobs.

See Also: 4Learning site.

Film

The channel has established a tradition of broadcasting the animated film of Raymond Briggs's picture book The Snowman, which in 1982 was the new channel's first major animated commission, every Christmas. From 2002, the film was controversially cropped from its original 4:3 picture format to the current widescreen standard of 16:9. The Channel also commissioned early work by Nick Park and Aardman Animation.

In March 2005, Channel 4 screened uncut Lars von Trier film The Idiots that includes unsimulated sexual intercourse, making it the first UK terrestrial channel to do so. The Channel had screened before other films with similar material but censored and with warnings. The broadcast after midnight only raised one complaint and has been taken as an indication of how far audience values have changed since the Channel began.

Notable Failures

Channel 4 has for a long time struggled in the breakfast slot. In 1989 the Channel launched a breakfast television slot produced by Mentorn Films, called the Channel 4 Daily. In 1992 this was replaced by The Big Breakfast, which briefly outrated the ITV breakfast broadcast, GMTV, after the closure of TV-am. The Big Breakfast was axed in March 2002. It was replaced by RI:SE, which rated terribly. With the demise of RI:SE, Channel 4 withdrew from original programming in the breakfast TV slot. Now T4 runs the early morning slots on weekdays showing repeats of popular shows such as Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond and Just Shoot Me. (This was temporarily interrupted in early 2006 with the show Morning Glory, designed to keep the audience following the early morning transmission of Big Brother's Little Breakfast).

4Talent

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4Talent is a branch of Channel 4's commissioning wing which co-ordinates Channel 4's various talent recruitment schemes for Film, Television, Radio, New Media et cetera, in association with its content providers. As well as being a means of recruitment, it also offers information and advice for new-comers and serves as a showcasing platform. It has offices in London, the West Midlands, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

See also; 4Talent.

TEN4

TEN4 is the quarterly creative industries magazine from 4Talent, which launched in 2005.

Controversies

Channel 4 and its associated channels do not cut programmes or movies for commercial timing purposes, however some imported shows have been known to be edited (Channel 4's broadcasts of animated sci-fi comedy Futurama is heavily edited in comparison to the episodes broadcast on rival channel Sky One).