After
being introduced by Peter Hassan of South West Screen, Stuart told us that
Channel 4 was set up to be different from the BBC and to be in competition
with ITV. It attracts a young audience (16 to 35-year-olds) and professional
class (ABC1) 'light viewers'. Since these audiences are affluent and media
savvy they are attractive to advertisers, and Channel 4 is able to take
advantage of this by being able to charge more for it's advertising.
Channel 4 regards itself as innovative, experimental and at the vanguard of new trends. It nurtures ideas and talent that often transfers to the mainstream BBC and ITV channels.
In recent years it has formulated a list of it's three core values:
1. "Do it first."
It has helped establish new genres
like it's reality entertainment show Big Brother. Gay and lesbian
issues have been covered in it's drama series Queer As Folk and
it has covered controversial topics in Brass Eye.
2. "Make Trouble."
Challenge conformity and go against
the grain. This comes from the ethos of the Punk era that challenged the
establishment and turned pop culture on it's head. Whereas the BBC tends
to run away from media controversy Channel 4 wants to go out and get it.
3. "Inspire Change."
Channel 4 wants to capture the pattern
of social and moral changes in Britain. Programmes show how people can
change. For example Jamie's Kitchen follows 15 trainees who 'want'
to work in the catering industry, and Faking It offers the chance
for people to be coached into a new job or role that they have only dreamed
about before.
On
the question of new media Channel 4 has had to determine where they can
get commercial value from it. Their E4 digital entertainment channel has
had good viewing figures but their other digital channel, Film Four has
not been so successful. However, in the next year they do plan to launch
a new factual digital channel.
The main income from new media has been gained from people telephoning their votes for Big Brother. They were so ashamed of earning money from a media usually used by telephone sex lines that they donated the income from the first series of Big Brother to charity! They have revised their opinion of such income and have kept the money since then.
Regarding regional broadcasting Stuart admitted that UK broadcasting is over-centralised in London. This is mainly due to the fact that the BBC was set-up in London followed by several ITV companies. There was an attempt to break the mould by setting up Channel 4 in Oxford, but it ended up in London. Likewise there was an attempt at basing Channel 5 in Sheffield but it also ended up in London.
Not surprisingly regionality has been regarded in a negative light. The regions are where the less good are dispatched to, or where people gain experience before upping sticks to the big city. That is the mindset of TV.
Channel 4 does have to meet regional targets, indeed it has a budget of £20 million for the south west alone. To encourage regional programmes Channel 4 commissioning editors get a bonus for meeting their targets.
For the first 10 years Channel 4 kept to the old structure of having departments arranged by genre - drama/sport/entertainment/news/science/etc. But this is more difficult with programmes like Big Brother that can be classified as a game show, soap opera and a social observation documentary. So they are looking at departments more in terms of how they meet the three core values and the balance of the schedules.
Channel 4 is still wrestling with what sports it should show, especially since it cannot afford football. In future it will be returning to serious documentaries, and it will be showing a new drama series Shameless by Paul Abbot. It will continue importing quality US imports and it has even started to develop a few low budget feature films again.
After
a short break for coffee, Sam McFadden of Available Light Interactive spoke
about his work on the What's This Channel 4? website. It was made
in conjunction with a 3-part TV series aimed at 14 to 19-year-old media
studies students. He showed how they used the distinctive Channel 4 building
in Horseferry Road as a map to explore the activities of the company. The
site also provides information about the broadcasting industry and you
can play games that teach you about scheduling, news editing and promoting
programmes. It is entertaining and educational. Whether you're a student
or not it's worth a look at: http://www.channel4.com/wtc4/
Stuart
Cosgrove added that part of the Channel 4 remit is to educate and in recent
years they have focussed on teenage education. By using new media they
can have greater dialogue with other programmes.
In the Question and Answer session, Stuart was asked about how small companies can get commissioned by Channel 4. The answer was that they should target areas where Channel 4 is encouraging new talent like The Slot and Alt-TV, or they could try active partnerships with bigger independent companies that already have a track record. On the latter point some people noted that the main independent in our region is Twofour TV, and they felt that it had too much influence.
Another point made by a member of the audience was that it no longer ran the community film and workshop projects. Stuart admitted that these disappeared in the early 1990s. It was not something they intended to do, but under the Thatcher government local funding for these schemes was removed and they were no longer sustainable. Today, programmes have to be the best whether or not they are made by any minority group. Many of the community programmes were incredibly bad and today Channel 4 is about professional TV that is able to sell advertising.
For all Stuart's talk of Channel 4's core values - doing things first, making trouble and inspiring change - they are nothing like the punk ethos, which showed that anyone however talentless could become a media star. Channel 4 is only radical in comparison with the mainstream, mass audience channels, but even that is debateable. At the end of the day it has to please it's advertisers who are essentially conservative, and that's why most programmes are 'professional' and lacking the innovation or experimentation of Channel 4's early days.
LINKS
Membership of the Plymouth Media Partnership is free, details can be found be contacting:
PMP, 9 Branson Court, Plympton, PL7 2WU
Telephone/Fax: 01752 346530
Website: www.pm-p.com
E-mail: karen@pm-p.com
Information about Channel 4 can be found at:
|
|