ACROSS MODERN TELEVISION, THE AVALANCHE OF NEW CHANNELS SHOWS LITTLE SIGN OF INTRODUCING AN AVALANCHE OF CHALLENGING NEW PROGRAMMES. IN A WORLD WHERE TELEVISION RISKS BECOMING LITTLE MORE THAN A FORMULAIC RATINGS MACHINE, IT IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THAT CHANNEL 4 STANDS OUT. We aim to be a place of individual authorship, a consistent source of surprise, invention and brainfood. We are for viewers who expect to be challenged, provoked and entertained by new ideas and new talent; who want programmes that are worth watching. The following review of our programming in 2000 (pages 10 to 25) shows that THE YEAR IN Channel 4 is delivering on its promise to viewers with the broadest and most interesting schedule of any broadcaster in Britain. REVIEW 8 | Channel Four Television Corporation Channel Four Television Corporation | 9 DOCUMENTARIES THE YEAR IN REVIEW THE YEAR IN REVIEW FEATURES Cutting Edge – Base Jumpers The Gambler Nigella Bites True Stories, 100% White Fifteen DEFINING RELEVANT DOCUMENTARIES FEATURES By allowing a sense of individual authorship, linked with and cleverly combined the popular and the intelligent whilst Channel 4 put renewed emphasis in 2000 on finding documentary Time Team proved its enduring popularity and maintained its campaigning commitment, Channel 4 has continued to produce tackling contemporary social issues. subjects within popular culture and was rewarded with two of the audience share in an increasingly competitive market to become the kind of contemporary documentary programmes which have most talked about programmes of the year. In Victoria’s Secrets, one of Channel 4’s top 30 rated programmes in 2000. Time Team all but vanished from other channels. Some of the results have Slavery was a campaigning feature-length documentary from Victoria Beckham turned interviewer in the rarefied world of also produced four days of live archaeology from Canterbury over made for uncomfortable but compelling viewing. Leo Regan’s the makers of The Dying Rooms about the growth of the modern celebrity and wittingly, or unwittingly, offered an insight into the August Bank Holiday weekend and successfully established highly personal film on racism 100% White documented the lives slave trade. As a result of the programme, a working party the everyday aspects of fame. The programme was Channel 4’s a new Time Team documentary strand with The Mystery of Mine of a group of neo Nazis he had photographed ten years before. was set up by the cocoa industry to attempt to eradicate slavery fourth highest rating programme of the year with 4.6 million Howe and The Mystery of Seahenge. Both performed well in peak, Another programme in the feature-length documentary strand from its production processes. A Very British Murder was a viewers. Coked Up was a short season of programmes looking as did various Time Team specials. True Stories was Babitsky’s War, one of a series of three films major series exploring contemporary British murder cases, at the prevalence of cocaine use within modern, British society. on Putin’s Russia, and a powerful account of the kidnapping which included the first on-camera interview with Tony Martin, Bold, uncensorious and timely, the season generated debate Can You Live Without…? was a first-time collaboration between of a Russian journalist in Chechnya by the Russian Army after he the Norfolk farmer who murdered a burglar in his home. and an enthusiastic critical response. Channel 4’s Features and Current Affairs departments, which exposed too much about the horrors of war in that region. And in investigated whether people could cope without the ‘essentials’ Mr Death, Errol Morris told the extraordinary story of an American The Gambler followed inveterate chancer Jonathon Rendall Nigella Lawson was launched as a fully-fledged face of Channel 4 of everyday life including make-up, cars and TV. Celebrity Frock engineer’s attempt to prove that the Holocaust never happened. on a global gambling spree. The Man Who Bought Mustique with her own show Nigella Bites and promptly became an Ups launched a new genre in archive programming and was one was a humorous portrait of the irascible Lord Glenconner omnipresent media personality. Driven, in its third series, broke of Channel 4’s top 20 programmes of the year, proving that Cutting Edge lived up to its name with a series of sharp and returning to the Caribbean island of Mustique to hold court through the two million audience barrier and regularly beat its half-hour programmes can still punch through in an increasingly energetic films on life in Britain today, including Paul Watson’s with Princess Margaret. established rival Top Gear. It is now regarded by the industry competitive schedule. A Wedding in the Family and Penny Woolcock’s The Five Of Us, as the motor show to watch. set in a household of people living with learning difficulties. In 2000 Channel 4 launched Alt tv, a peaktime initiative In daytime, both newly commissioned property show to find the next generation of factual programmes and A new consumer property show Location, Location, Location A Place in the Sun and Great Estates proved consistently Fifteen helped re-define modern British culture with a series that documentary filmmakers. debuted with a strong first series, and She’s Gotta Have It popular and earned an outing in the peaktime schedule. gave a troublesome, interrogative voice to emerging young Britain. gained fresh impetus from a new presenter, Jayne Middlemiss, Faking It gave its subjects the chance to become somebody else and a new peaktime slot. 10 | Channel Four Television Corporation Channel Four Television Corporation | 11 NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS THE YEAR IN REVIEW THE YEAR IN REVIEW NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS Just William… and Ffion Good journalism costs time and money. It takes commitment. While other broadcasters seem unwilling to pay that price, Channel 4's journalism just keeps on getting stronger. The reward has been a 15% increase in news audiences and the satisfaction of stories that change Government policy and influence national debate. News and current affairs have always been one of Current affairs output typified Channel 4’s appetite the primary signifiers of Channel 4’s public service for innovative approaches to difficult subjects. purpose, a true point of distinction between the Peter Kosminsky’s two-hour factual drama, Innocents, channel and other commercial broadcasters. In 2000 recounted the story of the baby heart surgery scandal the strength of the channel’s journalism was shown at Bristol Royal Infirmary. Innocents formed part in even sharper relief. of a Doctors on Trial season, which also featured Why Doctors Make Mistakes scrutinising the errors The year on Channel 4 had, as a spine, a series of the medical profession. of campaigns mapping the social pressure points of Britain – Adoption, Eating Disorders, Teenage Borrow a Baby, in which teenage couples were Sexuality, Why Doctors Make Mistakes, and Stress. given babies to look after in a controlled experiment, Combining current affairs with education and a real headlined current affairs’ contribution to the successful campaigning edge, seasons of this type have become Generation Sex season and a campaigning season on a Channel 4 hallmark, illustrating the channel’s Adoption was also broadcast at the start of the year. commitment to having a positive impact on the For the third year running Channel 4 put New Labour lives of its viewers. under the spotlight on the anniversary of the party’s ascent to power and Nick Cohen’s Tony’s New Boy Channel 4’s current affairs output was at the Network was the stand-out political programme of the forefront of the best television journalism in 2000. year. Channel 4 also gained exclusive access to William Channel 4’s current affairs flagship Dispatches Hague for a revealing profile, Just William… and Ffion. scored some notable hits, exposing British Airway’s pilots drinking to excess before flying passenger Channel 4 solidified its commitment to Channel 4 News flights in Flying Under The Influence. The follow-up adding an extra bulletin on Sundays, making it the coverage from the programme prompted the only serious news programme on British television Government to speed through legislation on alcohol seven days a week. Audiences responded with a 15% limits for pilots. In Children of the Secret State, year-on-year increase in the programme’s ratings. Ahn Chol risked his life to bring to world attention the shame of the brutal North Korean regime that The success of Channel 4 News as television’s is abandoning its children to starvation, disease fastest growing news bulletin was built on the and even cannibalism. strength and determination of its journalism. The team was consistently ahead of the story with Coverage of international affairs was also prominent its reporting and analysis of key stories such as on Channel 4 in 2000. In August the channel found the fuel crisis and the causes of the Hatfield rail itself bound up in a major political international disaster. It covered the last days of 14-year-old incident when a camera crew from Insight News, CJD victim, Zoë Jeffries, and gained an exclusive filming in Liberia for Sorious Samura’s Africa – interview with her mother Helen on the eve of the centrepiece of Channel 4’s Africa season – Lord Phillips’s report into BSE. was arrested and thrown in jail on the instructions INTOXICATING of President Charles Taylor. After a week of Innovation was a distinctive part of the bulletin’s diplomatic activity and international pressure, the appeal in 2000, with Naomi Klein’s visually arresting four men were released and returned to recount 25 minute film on global branding provoking debate their captivity at a press conference at Heathrow.