Channel 4

Origins

Channel 4 started broadcasting on 2nd November 1982 as a public service broadcaster (PSB). Channel 4’s original purpose was to provide a rival to BBC 1 and 2 – the first two PSBs.

After ITV began, ‘ITV 2’ was expected to become the next channel on TV but the new channel would be delayed by almost three decades due to conflicting ideas about how the new channel would operate – would it follow ITV’s commercial ethos or be more like the BBC? – but a compromise was finally reached in the form of Channel 4.

The delay in Channel 4’s establishment proved to be a positive thing. Since it could use ITV 2’s allocated frequency, Channel 4 experienced few problems with transmission.

Ownership

Even though Channel 4 is largely funded by advertising, it is ultimately owned by the public.

When the channel began as a PSB, C4 was not required to be commercially successful by being a PSB, so ITV used to fund some of C4. However, under the 1990 Broadcasting Act, C4 restructured to become a self-financing state owned corporation.

Programmes• Channel 4 airs a wide range of programmes

that appeal to many target audiences. A few of the most popular programmes include Hollyoaks (the daily soap that follows the loves, lives and misdemeanours of a group of people living in the Chester village of Hollyoaks) , Glue (eight-part drama series about murder and secrets set in the English countryside), Educating the East End and the Channel 4 News.

• People watch TV programmes for a number of different reasons such as escapism, entertainment, personal identity or for educational purposes.

Controversies

Channel 4 addressed many controversial topics throughout the years. From the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss to w*nk week, the Great Global Warming Swindle and the first public autopsy for 170 years.

Brookside Kiss Controversy• Running for 21 years from 1982, Brookside was Channel 4’s first

ever soap opera and a programme which regularly confronted audiences with hard-hitting and controversial subject matter. As well as storylines about drugs, murder and incest, the show made headlines in 1994 when it broadcast the first ever pre-watershed lesbian kiss between characters Beth Jordache and Margaret Clemence. The episode featuring the kiss earned C4 a peak rating of 9m viewers and made a star of Anna Friel, who played Jordache.

• While seen as hugely controversial at the time, the kiss has since been hailed as an iconic TV moment and was included in a video montage played at the opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Autopsy Controversy

In 2002, anatomist and showman Gunther von Hagens performed Britain’s first public autopsy for 170 years in front of an audience at a venue on East London’s Brick Lane. Dr Jeremy Metters, the Queen’s Inspector of Anatomy, insisted the event was illegal under the Anatomy Act but Channel 4 went ahead and showed it anyway, eliciting a then record 130 complaints to Ofcom.

W*nk Week• Channel 4 had planned to devote a season of programming to the

practice of masturbation during March 2007, which would have seen three luridly-titled documentaries on the subject broadcast over a week. The channel’s then head of factual entertainment Andrew McKenzie, speaking after the season was announced in 2006, said: “we feel this is exactly the type of provocative and mischievous programming that Channel 4 should be covering in the 11pm slot."

• But other senior television figures disagreed, including the outgoing Chief Executive of ITV Charles Allen who joked that, while C4 would have liked to lump W*nk Week in with its educational output, “that could be a hard one to pull off even for Channel 4.” W*nk Week was eventually dropped in February 2007 following the Celebrity Big Brother race row for fears that it would cause the broadcaster more unnecessary embarrassment in light of that furore.

Global Warming Film

• This film stated that global warming caused by man was a myth, and that profitable research grants were encouraging scientists to build a false consensus. More than one contributor complained they'd been misled and, within days, C4 was forced to withdraw some of the wackier claims, such as that volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans.