ITV 2 in the 70s

A notable cross-over between ITV and Channel 4 in the 80s/90s was "ITV Schools on 4".

Yes it was and it runined everything thereafter. Life without 4 there was an ITV2 instead all along., Big brother and reality TV never came to torture us forever more. Bliss

My grandparents used to have an early Sony Trinitron TV, which had buttons labelled with the channel names "BBC1", "BBC2", "ITV1" and "ITV2". I used to find it rather amusing that, 30 years later, the names where almost right!

Gosh! I remember the launch of channel 4. 1980 i believe, but feel free to correct me.
It was one of the best things to happen, i was only about 10 but quickly got hooked on Brookside. We didn't get a very good reception at first so i would go round a friends house to watch it. There was lots of swearing in Brookside then.

How times have changed.

2nd november 82,

Ok so was about 12...

I love the choice of channels avvailable nowadays. I'm tempted to switch from sky to freeview but there isn't so many channels available on freeview.

Don't label Big Brother with the same brush that you'd label all the rip-off formats that have arisen as a result of it's success.

Actually thinking about it Big Brother is virtually the ONLY show on Channel 4 which is based around public voting - unlike the BBC and ITV which rely on them week in, week out!

Couldn't agree mroe!

Channel four have 'Big Brother' They have other shows on at prime-time too. From 6, there is 'The Simpsons', Hollyoaks, Channel Four News. Then some sort of show about cleaning, or house-buying, or somethign (if i'm right), and big brother only starts at nine. What a variety! The other spin off shows are shunned to E4, and prior to film-four, their spare channel.

Channel three on the other hand …, i don't know the itv time-schedule (primarliy, because I've stopped watching ), but I'm guessing iti s 'Love Island', POker face, quiz, soap.

Yes this last week of Big brother, ahs meant that channel four's schedule is very BB orientated. This is only for a week, and it isn't that much of a broadcasting crime (thought it still irritates me).

If ITV had got channel four's space. We would have a dia state of television, in my opinion, becfause ITV would try to get away with more, with out the quality threshold of channel four, competition. Or we would have a brilliant state of television,b ecause OFCOM would never let ITV get away with what they do —because they had a bigger proportion of the mainstream television market. Though i think it is unfair to attribute the itv-isation of reality tv on channel four. Reality is perfect. it is when it is used to access because it is cheap, and generates audienc, which gets me!

Channel four gains profit through the same way channel three does. Differnece ‽ They have tighter PSB rules, because they are a PSB! If C4 can do it, why can't c3—

Speaking of reality TV...it could be argued that the BBC's "The Family" from the 1970s was one of the first "reality", "fly on the wall" type shows. Okay it was shot on film and only a half hour or so was screened each episode....but the crew stayed with the family for months.

Depends how you define "reality TV". I hate how in the last few years since Big Brother arrived that things previously defined as Docu-soaps, talent shows and even documentaries have labelled "reality TV".


My personal definition of reality TV is an ironic one really - it's taking people out of their own "reality" and putting them into a new environment.

Id consider Big Brother, Love Island, Im a Celeb Get me out of here as reality. Talent shows such as X Factor id consider entertainment series.

I disagree. If ITV had continued to gain advertising revenue from Channel 4 and its complimentary audience, it would have the freedom to commission a wider range of shows and not go for the lowest common denominator all the time.

Ever since 1982, it was really Channel 4 that was *ITV*s safety net, in that at that time, if people did not want to watch the country's first commercial television channel, they could only possibly be watching the second. And as ITV received the ad revenue for both, they were never technically losing any audience at all. In that regard, ITV/C4 operated as a single operation in competition terms, and competed only with the BBC as a single operation.

If C4 had continued to have that special arrangement with ITV, both could have carried on complementing one another in terms of audience loyalty and with a wider panoply of homegrown programme "brands" (as much as I hate that now oft overused and cliched word).