BBC Four’s return to normality was just a blip

22 December 2005 Rob Buckley Film, News, UK TV 1 Comment

My head’s in a whirl again. No sooner do I think that BBC Four has returned to a post-Christmas schedule of unwatchable crud, then they start to unveil things like Jonathan Ross’s Asian Invasion.

Say what you like about Jonathan Ross – I’ve probably said it already – but when it comes to films, he really knows his stuff. His 1980s Channel Four film programme, the Incredibly Strange Film Show, introduced a whole generation of British youth to Jackie Chan movies long before he became ubiquitous in Hollywood, and that was just one of its achievements. So a three-part tour of Asian cinema by Johnny can only be good.

While researching this entry, I came across an article in The Independent, which suggested that BBC4’s ascent into watchability may actually be a strategy by BBC4 controller Janice Hadlow. If it is, my hat’s off to you Ms Hadlow. It turns out you may be the only controller in British television who knows what she’s doing.

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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