Wow. Channel 4 has an interesting and incredibly timely programme on next Monday. I assume it’ll detail how to survive on the Gaza Strip when you’re being bombed daily by the Israelis.
Wait a minute… My mistake.
It’s actually called “Surviving Gazza“, and is about the famously off-the-rails footballer.
Of course this is scheduled after an episode of the returning Celebrity B** B******. The fact is that Channel 4 can’t survive without the ratings that this garbage gives them. We all know that they’re in trouble, and are desperately short of cash. BB doesn’t rock my boat. The people they sign up are “celebrities” in the loosest sense, largely doing it to reignite their waning careers (there’s no other real reason to go on). But as I’ve said before, the downside is that C4 is effectively off limits for me for the next x-weeks – I neither know nor care how long it lasts.
So what’s the answer? C4 needs BB to at least attempt to balance the books. E4, More 4 and even Film Four are appreciated by their respective audiences, but overall the station is haemorrhaging cash, and has recently made quite a large proportion of its staff redundant. It’s unable to really benefit from international sales or DVD revenues because it doesn’t its own programming – it’s all made by independent production companies. And its news is facing problems as ITV cuts ever back, perhaps even leaving news behind altogether. As it is, the channel relies on ITV’s regional news divisions.
Is it time for the end of Channel 4? I’m not sure that its is, but I worry that the direction it’s headed is doing it no good in the long term.