Channel 4 praised for Big Brother action
This year's "ordinary" Big Brother 8 was always going to be subjected to far greater scrutiny as a consequence of the last Celebrity Big Brother fiasco, and Channel 4 in a sense must be relieved that it had a cast-iron example of racism that could be dealt with by a swift eviction in order to conclusively prove that the channel had learnt lessons from the Shilpa Shetty affair.
Combine this with Channel 4's determination to go ahead with last night's screening of "Diana: The Witnesses in the Tunnel" despite Princes William and Harry's objections to certain photographs being used, and you get the distinct impression that this is a channel that's now determined to show that it's now firmly in control of its programming.
As for last night's Diana documentary, from what I saw of it there was precious little that hadn't been seen in some form previously, and it provided a "right to reply" for some of the photographers that had been involved with that night's fateful events. Ironically the following related discussion programme had to wait until after an edition of Big Brother.
However all is still not well with Big Brother; the simple fact that it provides a quarter of Channel 4's revenue needs to be addressed in the near term since such a dependence is potentially damaging for the future of the channel as a whole. And there's the rest of Channel 4's output to judge on its public service credentials (or lack of them) as well.
Whether or not Channel 4 will end up being privatised may ultimately just depend on how desperate central government is for the money, and a spiralling bill for the ID card project - even if the cards themselves are ultimately scrapped - might end up as being a factor that just tips the balance in favour, regardless of how well-behaved Channel 4 has been in the interim.
