Multichannel the ghost of Christmas future

The media (in this case, MediaGuardian) for some reason still seems to be well and truly besotted with the concept of 'multichannel fragmentation', ie. Mum watches Strictly Come Dancing whilst Dad watches a documentary on war films at the same time as their eldest son watches Big Brother on his mobile phone. Or something.

All this may turn out to be true one day, but this still ignores the fact that people will naturally gravitate towards something that has some merit, which tends to rule out the nth repeat of some dodgy sitcom on UKTV Classic Heritage Gold +2. Therefore anyone who dares to still put some effort into creating quality television still stands a good chance of attracting a large audience.

And of course there's the watercooler effect of event-based TV, which of course explains ITV's obsession with the X-Factor and Channel 4's fixation with Big Brother; these work best with column-inches of publicity in the tabloids to fuel the office gossip, therefore any channel smaller than Channel Five (step forward Sky One) will have their reality TV efforts largely doomed from the start.

But at the end of the day it all boils down to one simple fact: to produce quality television requires a lot of effort and imagination, not just money (though that helps a fair bit if you already have the first two). You can throw a lot of money at something (eg. the new Sky News set) but the rewards are minimal unless the actual content is truly original or of very high quality.

Indeed more channels simply means that broadcasters will be punished harder for being complacent; lazily shoving a repeat of The Sound of Music on over the festive period can end up being very counterproductive as a result. However the success of the likes of Doctor Who should demonstrate that anyone who dares to be different stands a much better chance of winning.