Sacked ITV boss attacks "downmarket" Channel 4

I can see where Charles Allen is coming from in his speech, though he's probably just narked off that ITV isn't getting the figures that Channel 4 is, granted Big Brother, Deal or No Deal, The Simpsons etc are hardly public service.

I for one really hate Big Brother, but I just don't choose to watch it, and also see it as paying for the worthwhile stuff on Channel 4, such as original Drama and Comedy such as Shameless, Sugar Rush, Peep Show etc, which I don't think could be done if the channel just relied on adverts, Big Brother brings alot of money to Channel 4, all of which goes back into programmes.

An interesting interview on Media Guardian today with chief executive of CBS Leslie Moonvees on how he turned CBS around.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1864340,00.html


Quite interesting how he says he reads scripts for all the pilots etc. - nothing to back this up with, and despite blaming him for all of ITV woes, I always imagine that Charles Allen has very little to do with actual programming and just says OK to anything!

Actually, I guess Celebrity Wrestling and Celebrity Love Island do back that up!

A little off-topic, but worth mentioning. There was a question on University Challenge just now about which Emperor introduced fights between women and dwarves to the gladiatorial games. After revealing the answer, Paxman suggested that it was the same bloke who was in charge of the ITV schedule

David