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DEBUTS
JANUARY ...
In a major two-part drama, Kenneth Branagh
starred as Shackleton ... No Going Back followed those making
life-changing decisions ... the history of the SAS was told in Commando
... the latest reality show was Eden...and
The Trust went behind the scenes of a health centre.
FEBRUARY ...
Rotten sitcom The Estate Agents was
another spin-off from Comedy Lab ... Sammy Davis Jnr. and Richard
Pryor were Kings of Black Comedy ... while MTV hit Jackass
arrived.
MARCH ...
Make My Day saw unsuspecting young people
subjected to the strangest days of their lives ... and Daisy Donovan hosted
panel game Does Doug Know.
APRIL ...
Comedy drama came in the form of The Book
Group ... The Edwardian
Country House was the latest programme taking a family back to
the past ... Football's Fight Club investigated the rise of hooliganism
... RI:SE was C4's new
breakfast show ... while a series of programmes on sexuality included
the unique Truth About Gay Animals.
MAY ...
So Graham Norton mutated into the daily
V Graham Norton ... Daisy Daisy saw Ms Donovan hit the Wax/Theroux
trail and meet American eccentrics ... Hugh Fearnely-Whittingstall introduced
the spin-off Treats From the Edwardian Country House ... and David
Aaronovitch presented a history of Sex on TV.
JUNE ...
Six Feet Under was the latest acclaimed
US import.
JULY ...
People with terminal illnesses were the subject
of Death ... the latest Star Trek incarnation, Enterprise,
was the first to debut on C4 ... American sitcom Scrubs began ...
Nigel Farrell and Nippi Singh documented their efforts to find A Place
in France ... while Frontier House was the US adaptation of
the C4 "House" format.
AUGUST ...
Classmates saw past students return
to school ... and Noble and Silver's joyless "experimental" comedy moved
over from E4.
SEPTEMBER ...
Bo Selecta was a bizarre topical comedy
show ... Crime Team saw celebrities attempt to solve crimes committed
many years ago ... the life of students of St Hilda's College, Oxford
was detailed in College Girls ... Alias was the newset US
import in the early evenings ... The Showbiz Set told of the rise
and fall of many light entertainers ... while Zadie Smith's best-seller
White Teeth was dramatised.
OCTOBER ...
Timothy Spall underwent a midlife crisis in
Bodily Harm ... and The
Art Show was the new cultural strand.
NOVEMBER ...
C4's latest high-profile US import, The
Osbournes, kicked off on Friday nights.
FINALES
THE BIG BREAKFAST
It had been a long time since Chris and Gaby
had lorded it over GMTV, and The Big Breakfast's viewing
figures had been declining for many years. Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van
Outen had helped to bring some of the audience back, but their departure
in January 2001 saw the programme completely run out of steam. A new look
saw comedian Paul Tonkinson take over as main presenter, but he only lasted
three months before being dropped. The re-launched format wasn't a success,
and, as with all the programme's revamps, it soon reverted its original
look. With viewing figures continuing to dip, it was decided to put the
contract for the programme out to tender. C4 received dozens of applications,
and commissioned a handful of companies to produce pilots. Despite touting
Chris Moyles as a potential front man for their new look Big Breakfast,
Planet 24 lost out to a joint bid from Princess Productions and Sky. The
final episode of The
Big Breakfast on 29 March was a grisly three hours of self-aggrandisement,
with the deposit of a giant garden gnome giving a two-fingered salute
outside 124 Horseferry Road summing up the whole thing. In 1992, The
Big Breakfast was a lively and exciting way to wake up. In 2002, it
was a joyless, tired mess.
MISC ...
Jimmy McGovern's Sunday marked the 30th anniversary
of Bloody Sunday ... Jon Ronson's The Double Life of Jonathan King
was postponed by six weeks for legal reasons ... Adam and Joe counted
down The 50 Greatest Magic Tricks in May ... the channel marked
the fifth anniversary of Diana's death with the opera When She Died
... it was announced that from the end of November, Brookside would
only be shown on Saturday afternoons ... and A Clockwork Orange
was shown on television for the first time.
ON SCREEN
DERMOT O'LEARY
O'Leary's first association with Channel 4
came in 1997 when he was a warm-up man on Light Lunch. He then
began presenting a range of youth programmes including No Balls Allowed
and Buzz, and co-presented Inside Rugby for a while in 1999
after it was realised that as main presenter Thierry Lacroix couldn't
actually speak English very well. His big break came later that year when
he joined the T4 presenter line-up. His ability to improvise and wry humour
soon made him a favourite, but perhaps his finest hour came during the
coverage of 2000's Party in the Park when he had to talk non-stop
for 20 minutes while Elton John got ready. In 2001 he was given the job
of fronting E4's Big Brother spin-off show, Big Brother's Little
Brother, which started to become something of a cult - many arguing
that he was a more accomplished host then Davina McCall. He was also active
behind the scenes, working as a writer and researcher on a number of programmes.
It's not hard to see Dermot becoming a prime-time mainstay in years to
come.
BANZAI
Banzai first appeared on E4's
opening night, and it remains the best thing that the channel has
ever produced. The cod-Japanese betting show was blessed with some fantastic
ideas ("Coming up - Egg Roulette... with Go West!") and amusing
presentation, including Burt Kwouk's deadpan voice-overs. Banzai's
most famous sketch in 2002, though, was something that never made it to
the screen, after they were moved on by police while trying to measure
the speed of the Queen Mother's funeral procession. Consistent invention
meant that what could have been a one-joke format (as the similar BBC
Choice series Stupid Punts illustrates) continued to amuse and
entertain for two series so far. At a time when much of C4's comedy was
based on a single idea stretched to breaking point, Banzai was
a breath of fresh air - it was funny, it was cheeky, and it just didn't
give a toss.
OFF SCREEN
• Mark Thompson took charge full-time on 12
March and announced that no underperforming programmes were safe. Brookside
was moved to a single Saturday omnibus slot and RI:SE
and Richard and Judy
were said to be at risk.
• The channel reported a loss of £28m, and around 200 job cuts
in total followed. While the bare bones of C4 remained, the film production
arm Film Four was wound up.
• The director of College Girls complained after C4 decided
to drop the fifth episode of the series, citing low viewing figures and
dissatisfaction with the quality of the series.
• The Brass Eye Special was repeated in May.
FOUR-WORDS
"It's the least we could do after all
the sh ... stuff they've given us over the years."
- Mike McLean during the final Big
Breakfast
"Brookside has been a brilliant
programme for Channel 4 as well as the most ground-breaking and influential
soap of the past two decades. It remains a high quality drama, which is
still enjoyed by many viewers. But peak-time has changed radically across
British TV and is no longer an environment in which Brookside can
thrive. We want to explore new ideas in peak, while still giving Brookside
regulars a chance to enjoy the show over the next year."
- Mark Thompson
"There was always a sense that Jeremy
Isaacs didn't want anything changed; in his book he said there were the
"touchstones of the remit". Well, that's crap. The fact is that
the channel has got to go on re-inventing itself and it has to have sense
of authorship. I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that under Mark Thompson's
leadership the channel will balance the need to reinterpret the remit
with the need to run an efficient business."
- Michael Grade
MY FAVOURITE CHANNEL 4 MOMENT ...
THE DOUBLE LIFE OF JONATHAN
KING (2002)
Ever since I'd caught the excellent The
Ronson Mission on DEFII
I'd followed Jon Ronson's TV career with some interest. His first appearance
on Channel 4, however, was a comparative disappointment; an After Dark
style series in which Ronson chaired discussions with various eccentrics
and enthusiasts. It was entertaining telly, but disappointingly static.
Ronson's strength was in his interaction with other cultures and people,
rather than in chairing a debate.
Thankfully, his next series Secret Rulers of
The World found Ronson leading an investigation into counter-cultural
religions and beliefs. He was back to producing thought-provoking and
authored telly.
When news came out that his next project was to
be an investigation into Jonathan King, who was about to stand trial for
sexually assaulting underage boys, I knew that this was going to be a
fascinating television moment. That its original broadcast was delayed
due to legal reasons made my anticipation even keener.
But funnily enough my initial reaction to the programme
was disappointment again. The first 20 minutes seemed to be made up of
fairly anonymous reportage. However gradually, with the facts established,
Ronson's own editorial stance seeped in. And the programme took an interesting
turn ...
With paedophiles equated to the bogey man in today's
society, it was instructive and important to listen to ex Radio 1 DJ Chris
Denning's attempts to justify his own criminal actions. Highly revealing
was a sequence when Denning would refer euphemistically to "young
people" and Ronson would pointedly paraphrase this back to him as
"young boys". Here we were being introduced to a vital aspect
of Denning's mindset which sought to legitimise his actions. It prompted
us to realise that your Dennings and Kings aren't some quintessence of
evil, alien to the rest of the world. Nor are they thwarted romantics
with progressive morals (as Jonathan King sought to portray himself -
the Oscar Wilde allusion being particularly inappropriate). They're self-delusional,
that's true, but also they're something far more mundane and insipid and
everyday.
Ronson's greatest asset in this programme was his
ability to get right to the heart of the matter - often in a simple and
frank way. The stand-out moment came when Ronson mused: "King saw
himself as a martyr. I saw him as someone who shouldn't have had sex with
underage boys". There was the clash in world-views, simply put.
After the programme finished my viewing companion
and I sat and talked about it for a good 30 minutes. It had been a long
time since we'd discussed a programme like that.
- Graham Kibble-White
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