The Stage

More for the viewer? - More4

Published Friday 21 October 2005 at 12:10 by Jeremy Austin

Launched on October 10, More4 is aimed at the late thirties audience. Has it created a marketable identity for itself, asks Jeremy Austin

Good news, then, for the launch of Channel 4’s new ‘down to earth’ digital channel More4. People watched it.

According to the unofficial overnight viewing figures for its first night, it averaged 269,000 viewers, peaking at 574,000 during the David Blunkett/Kimberly Quinn satire A Very Social Secretary. That is more than was enjoyed by either BBC3 or BBC4’s first nights.

When it was originally announced, Channel 4 said its new outlet would be “more accessible” than the BBC’s arts and culture digital channel and would “give viewers top quality and factual material on tap and extend the public service channel reach and impact of the core channel”.

In other words, people a little older, mentally at least, than the mid twenty-somethings being attracted by C4 might be tempted away from their ever expanding DVD collections and/or young families and back to watching television again - television with an intellectually stimulating remit.

In fact, it is unashamedly aimed at the over-35s. Or rather the just-over-35s, I would imagine, rather than, say, people who are over 70. And as More4 does not seem to be programming repeated episodes of Miss Marple and Inspector Morse, there is probably some ceiling to the intended viewing age.

I am in my late thirties. And certainly on the surface More4 ticks a number of boxes. John Pilger-style investigative documentaries, intelligent satirical humour, The West Wing and, most importantly, the greatest comedy to come out of America since Frasier, Curb Your Enthusiasm. The DVDs stayed firmly on the shelf on the evening of October 10. But they have come down since.

Industry experts, however, have been more welcoming. Media pundit and Stage columnist Maggie Brown is a fan of what the broadcaster is trying to do.

“More4 is designed to fit in above E4, it is pitched at upmarket ABC1, aged 35 and over. As such it makes good commercial sense for Channel 4 and is very similar to the demographic approach ITV is taking, also with success,” she says.

“I really enjoyed A Very Social Secretary but that was clearly a calling card, to get people to hunt for the channel, a very long way down the Sky EPG [electronic programme guide], though far more accessible on Freeview.

“The fact it is on the entertainment bar of the EPG also underscores the fact it has developed from a documentary-oriented channel, as first conceived.”

Certainly what has eventually been programmed is far and away more interesting than the original idea for G4, as it was to be called until that was tagged Geriatric 4 by cruel media types.

Originally a documentary and drama repeat channel, its incoming controller Peter Dale has been quoted as saying he thought this “pretty uninspiring”. Then Kevin Lygo took over the broadcaster from the BBC-bound Mark Thompson.

The pair got together with C4 chief executive Andy Duncan to came up with the new idea fuelled by a £33 million programming budget - two-thirds of which will go on original British content - and which has been dubbed “Channel 4 without the silly bits” by Lygo.

That is an apposite description but possibly not for the reason’s Lygo would wish. More4 has the feel of Channel 4 when it originally launched. Cutting-edge films - the sort that would not normally make it to television - a gritty, edgy soap in Brookside, intelligent challenging drama, in-depth news documentaries.

Not only has More4 expertly filled a niche by gathering up those who had grown too old for many of the other digital channels but conversely it has also highlighted just how far from its original concept Channel 4 has drifted. There are too many “silly bits” for C4 to retain much of the credibility it once had and, with the launch of More4, that is more obvious than ever.

As Brown points out: “The key thing about the programming is that it is a livelier and more original mix than was first proposed under the Thompson regime two years ago. It reflects chief executive Andy Duncan’s decision to invest more.

“This is shared by Kevin Lygo, who also knew it needed to be a distinctive, lively offering, with a public service value - hence the news, nightly at 8pm, and the late-night discussion, designed to make it feel more than a channel of acquisitions and repeats.”

If anything, More4 has not yet gone far enough in re-establishing the 4 brand’s credibility. A Very Social Secretary is being shown on the mother channel and Channel 4 stalwarts such as Rory Bremner pitched up on More4 launch night. It was like going on holiday with your neighbours - same faces, different places.

It is essential that it does mark out its own territory. BBC2 is generally thought to have suffered from the launch of the twenty-something, comedy-driven BBC3 and the arts and culture-led BBC4.

More4, which it is hoped will hit BBC4’s audience, must be different enough to convince people that it will be worth their while schleping through the listings to find out what is on. Digital viewers will be clicking for a long time before they come across it, nestling just below E4 and E4+ on Sky Digital, for example.

If it does and it fulfils its aims, there certainly is an unfulfilled audience for quality films, in-depth documentaries and who are, frankly, looking for a place to stop and be stimulated. And I will be among them.