I’ve been duped by ITV4

13 November 2005 Rob Buckley Film, UK TV 1 Comment

Fooled by all that pre-launch guff, I naively believed that ITV4 was in fact going to have the programmes and American imports it claimed. I’ve just checked the listings and discovered something incredible. None of that is true. In fact…
ITV4 is exactly the same as Bravo. But more than that, it’s Bravo circa 1996.
Here’s what I mean:

  1. Sunday: 3.15am UFO; 6pm Strange Report; 7pm Space 1999
  2. Monday: 6pm Man in a Suitcase; 7pm Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
  3. Tuesday: 6pm Return of the Saint; 7pm The Champions
  4. Wednesday: 6pm Department S; 7pm The Saint
  5. Thursday: 6pm The Adventurer; 7pm The Persuaders
  6. Friday: 6.30pm The Protectors; 7pm Jason King

That’s practically the entire ITC output of the 60s and 70s there. They’re short of Danger Man, The Avengers and The Prisoner, but hell, they’ve got The Champions so I don’t care. I’d watch The Persuaders for the theme tune, but it’s never been the same since I stopped watching the dubbed French version: Tony Curtis sounded so much better en fran?ɬ�ais.
To cap it all, they have First Wave, Andromeda and Alien Nation, as well as Alex Cox of Sid and Nancy and Repo Man fame essentially repeating his Moviedrome gig from the late 80s.
ITV4? Why not just call it “The Cult TV channel” and get it over with? If they ever broke Street Hawk out of the mothballs, I’d watch nothing else.

Author

  • Rob Buckley

    I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.

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