Showing the way forward
Channel 4 plans radical overhaul
Dropping Big Brother altogether is still impossible financially for Channel 4 in the current media climate despite the steady decline in its ratings, but they've just gone and done the next best thing, namely 'resting' Celebrity Big Brother next year (although there will be a Big Brother 'derivative' on E4 instead).
Back in 2000, Big Brother was a novelty-cum-'scientific experiment' but over time it became more of a means of giving a bunch of misfits their 15 minutes of fame (and tabloids some headlines) before disappearing back into relative obscurity (or daytime TV which is nearly the same thing, despite any pretensions of 'social experimentation' that Channel 4 made.
The main yearly Big Brother show is slowly but surely losing its allure over time, which at least gives some breathing space to allow Channel 4 to consider future alternative forms of revenue, but the Celebrity Big Brother scandal has accelerated the requirement for change.
Even more significant however is the dropping of a range of reality TV formats such as Brat Camp and You Are What You Eat, which in a sense is an even braver move than resting Celebrity Big Brother, but this year's Celebrity Big Brother scandal has also cast a very uncomfortable spotlight on the rest of Channel 4's programming output by default.
Channel 4 knows very well that it could easily have ended up being privatised as a result of what happened, which is the last thing it wants because that would put the channel in direct competition with (often) larger commercial rivals such as ITV, RTL, Sky and Virgin, which would make Channel 4's independent future even more uncertain as a result.
So far, Channel 4 has had a fair amount of trouble trying to convince Ofcom and politicians alike that it was a special case compared to ITV, etc., and the Celebrity Big Brother furore threatened to undo all of the previous hard work in trying to persuade the powers that be that Channel 4 ought to be given special treatment as a public service broadcaster.
Hence as a result it became even more imperative that mere promises now had to be backed up with actions as a matter of urgency regardless of the potential financial sacrifice involved, leading inevitably to today's announcements in relation to future Channel 4 commissions and the schedule in general.
Replacing words with deeds for Channel 4 may still be a significant gamble; it's still perfectly possible that politicians will still lose faith in the channel just like they had done before with ITV as a result of the ONdigital/ITV Digital football fiasco, but at least Channel 4 isn't prepared to give up its public service credentials without a fight.
And having More4 for (relatively) 'upmarket' programming has been no defence for 'dumbing down' the main channel, as Channel 4 discovered to its detriment. Today's announcement by Channel 4 is commendable - we'll have to wait and see as to the exact outcome - but strictly speaking it's the very least that should be done to try and restore its overall credibility.
