Channel 4 is pleading for “controversial, taboo and trouble-making” shows to mark its 40th birthday as the once-scandalous broadcaster faces a mid-life crisis.
The network which once challenged viewers with Brookside and Brass Eye now looks to Bake Off and property shows for ratings. However this week it has asked programme-makers to come up with ideas for the November anniversary that reflect its radical roots.
The Here Comes Trouble – C4 at 40 brief seeks “stunts”, live events and “smart polemics” that are “profoundly controversial and noisy” to revive its reputation as TV’s “troublemaker-in-chief.”
The pitches should raise “taboo” topics, including ideas that have previously been ruled out for television because of censorship rules, according to the brief, seen by Broadcast.
The document asks: “How much trouble can we make? How should we be challenging the status quo? Who is a deserving target? What is truly unsayable today? How many feathers can we ruffle?”
The polemics should include “jaw-dropping” propositions that challenge assumptions about society.
The brief emerged as Ian Katz, Channel 4’s chief content officer, said the channel would not cancel Jimmy Carr, who fronts game show I Literally Just Told You, despite the comedian’s widely-condemned joke about gypsies in a Netflix special.
“Jimmy hasn’t espoused any views that are at odds with C4 values, and just as we as a broadcaster exist to serve and represent a wide range of communities, we should always be home to the widest range of voices,” Mr Katz told Broadcast, adding “comedy is dead” if comedians can’t make offensive jokes.
Mr Katz said there were no plans to axe long-running formats like Grand Designs to make room for new shows.
Even Googlebox, regularly Channel 4’s most-watched show, is now nine years old, while The Great British Bake Off, an oven-ready hit acquired from the BBC, is heading for its 13th season.
Channel 4 launched in 1982 with the ground-breaking Comic Strip comedy series and unpredictable live music show The Tube.
It commissioned My Beautiful Laundrette, a pioneering film centred on an inter-racial gay relationship, and After Dark, a riotous, often drunken, late-night chat show.
Youth show The Word, Chris Morris’s scabrous comedy Brass Eye, and reality show Big Brother continued to stoke controversies throughout the 90s and noughties.
The trouble-making brief seeks voices that remain in the minority, such as a particular political constituency.
Facing the threat of privatisation from ministers, Channel 4 has sought to challenge a perceived liberal-left bias by giving Andrew Neil a weekly political show.
Rosie Jones, the acclaimed comedian who has ataxic cerebral palsy, will host a new comedy, chat and cooking show, in what Channel 4 – the Paralympics broadcaster – described as a “big stride forward” for representation of disability on TV.
Sex Actually with Alice Levine, the frank look at people’s sex lives fronted by the host of hit podcast My Dad Wrote a Porno, will return.
Last year, It’s A Sin, Russell T Davies’ 80s-set drama about the HIV/Aids crisis, won awards and huge streaming numbers.
The sweetest taboos…
Here are some pitches that i thinks C4’s programme makers might like to consider…
Jimmy Carr’s Big Fat Gypsy Education – Controversial comic spends a month living with a community of Travellers and learns about their history of discrimination.Naked Bake Off – Contestants take soggy bottoms too far in revealing spin-off already a hit in Scandinavia.
Big Brother: Windsor Castle – Prince Andrew looks to avoid eviction as the housemates fear a dreaded public vote on their future.
Four Streets – Best-selling “clogs and shawls” novels by Nadine Dorries set in a tight-knit Irish Catholic community in 50s Liverpool will be adapted as major new drama series by Russell T Davies. A show bound to curry favour with the Culture Secretary.
Brass Eye: Partygate special – Ted Maul and Peter O’Hanraha-hanrahan investigate the cake-fuelled parties which ripped through the heart of government.
