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by Steve Williams
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by Ian Jones
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by Jack Kibble-White
DEBUTS
NOVEMBER ...
Countdown, Channel 4 News and
Brookside formed the core of C4's opening night, along with The
Paul Hogan Show, the first ever Film on Four - Walter,
starring Ian McKellan - and The
Comic Strip Presents ... "Five Go Mad In Dorset" ...
current affairs were tackled in Twenty-Twenty Vision ... Union
World and A Week in Politics focused on politics, while Face
the Press profiled the print media ... the weekend started in Newcastle
with The Tube, while youth issues were explored in Whatever
You Want ... Black on Black and Asian Eye, made by LWT's Minorities
Unit, gave exposure to ethnic and racial issues ... high profile sports
coverage kicked off with American Football ... Making The Most Of
profiled opportunities in lifestyles and learning ... David Stafford addressed
consumer matters in For What It's Worth ... alternative documentaries
and films were showcased in The Eleventh Hour ... and Right
to Reply gave viewers the chance hold the broadcasters to account.
DECEMBER ...
The Snowman premiered on 26 December
... Treasure
Hunt took the skies ... and Citizen 2000 began tracing
the fortunes of a group of infants born the same year as the station itself.
FINALES
FAMILY CHOICE
One of Jeremy Isaacs' more fanciful ideas as
founding boss of Channel 4 was to assume he could win family audiences
to his channel at peak viewing times. Yet for all his bluster about how,
"when ITV is at its most entertaining we shall offer news, and when
it is showing its news, we shall run the most watchable film we can find,"
all he came up with was the decidedly half-hearted Family Choice slot.
Every Thursday at 8pm, so the publicity went, C4 would carefully screen
an overtly populist and entertaining documentary with mass appeal - but
also, crucially, one which the whole family could enjoy. It was hard to
imagine just what could live up to such a grand promise; sure enough,
this ostensibly high profile flagship strand opened with a flop in the
shape of Max Boyce Meets The Dallas Cowboys. Hardly anybody, let
alone families, tuned in; within a couple of weeks the Family Choice branding
was dropped, and within a few months the entire idea was quietly put to
bed.
MISC ...
What The Papers Say moved to C4 from ITV ... the channel's first four Sunday nights on air were given over to an epic LWT production of The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby overseen by Michael Grade ... a decade-long plundering of ITV archives began with a lengthy re-run of Upstairs Downstairs ... and C4's first ever "theme night" took place on 27 December in the shape of the four-hour Fifties to the Fore - a selection of archive ABC and ATV shows including Armchair Theatre and Oh Boy.
ON SCREEN
PAUL HOGAN
"Our star comedian" was how Jeremy
Isaacs ambitiously billed Paul Hogan in pre-launch publicity. More known
in Britain as being the face of Foster's lager, such was the exposure
Isaacs and his staff heaped on Hogan that he quickly became more or less
the station's first proper "celebrity". The Paul Hogan Show
itself was actually a repackaging of material first screened on Network
Nine in Australia in 1977. But given a regular slot in the schedules -
usually Friday nights - throughout C4's first 12 months, Hogan brought
a bit of star quality to the otherwise somewhat anonymous channel, even
though Isaacs personally considered his material "rude and chauvinistic
... I thought his compatriot Norman Gunston funnier."
RIGHT TO REPLY
Up until the launch of Sunday morning kids
strand T4 in 1998, Right to Reply was the only programme made by
Channel 4 itself - everything else was bought in. Designed to be as far
removed from Points of View as possible, the show's first presenter
was the brusque and hard-to-like Gus MacDonald, but it was arguably one
of Jeremy Isaacs' most imaginative creations. For those interested in
the black arts of the TV industry, Right to Reply was a wonderful
glimpse behind closed doors; for the casual viewer it offered a chance
to see ordinary people talking back to the executives - something that
became more pronounced with the introduction of the walk-in photo-booth
style "Video Box" a few years later. The brainchild of future
director of programmes Liz Forgan, this device was first erected at C4
HQ in Charlotte Street, London. A second followed in Glasgow, then others
were quickly installed at various notable sites around the country. Never
had it been so fun to watch members of the public sounding off on prime
time TV.
OFF SCREEN
• Channel 4 went on air slightly before 4.45pm
on Tuesday 2 November, beginning with an impressive, imperial montage
of clips set to the striding sounds of a special extended version of David
Dundas' Channel 4 theme titled Fourscore. 90% of the country was, in theory,
able to tune in.
• A dispute between the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA)
and Equity over whether actors should be paid lower repeat fees due to
C4's "minority" status meant that on the opening night, and
for many months after (as with TV-am from February 1983), adverts
often comprised dull businessmen desperately trying to sell their products
in complete silence and an empty studio.
• The peak weekly swearword count for 1982, as monitored by The Sun, was
173.
• Having set an eventual target of a 10% audience share, Channel 4's figure
of 6.6% for the first week on air slumped to just 2.8% by Christmas -
the lowest in the channel's history.
FOUR-WORDS
"Channel 4 has been brought into being for
one purpose only: to serve YOU by increasing your choice of entertainment
and information. And a very choosing viewer you are too. Channel 4 has
set out to give you an alternative, if you fancy it, to whatever ITV is
showing at any time of the evening. Channel 4 is for you. Use it. Enjoy
it. And, please, tell us what you think of it."
- Jeremy Isaacs, Chief Executive,
C4
"It looks, Mr Whiteley, as if yours will be
the first face on Channel 4. Good luck to them."
- John Fairley, Director of Programmes,
Yorkshire Television
"It won't be long before everyone's playing
it - and talking about it."
- Jeremy Isaacs on Countdown
"On last night's showing, I give them four
out of ten for trying."
- Charles Catchpole, The Sun, 03/11/82
"Lord Lucan is to get his own late show
on Channel 4. He figures there is less chance of being spotted there than
Paraguay. Judging by the first month's ratings, there have been more people
in the Queen's bedroom."
- The Daily Mail, 11/12/82
MY FAVOURITE CHANNEL 4 MOMENT ...
START-UP (1982)
The ideal Channel 4 moment for me would probably
be the blank screen that preceded its opening night's delayed start, at
which our family stared in utter fascination for about half an hour until
Countdown eventually came on, and we switched over. In a sense
this unscheduled empty space was the most profound and challenging Channel
4 show of them all!
- Daniel Stour
