ITV have revealed details for ITV4, a channel for men.

ITV, currently playing the clever strategy of replacing a show as toe-curlingly awful as Celebrity Wrestling with a show even more fantastically awful, Celebrity Love Island, have decided that the male-targeted ITV4 will compliment their current roster of TV channels.

By fishing for male viewers, the general view is that ITV4 will be
squarely aimed at people that read Zoo and Nuts. Trouble is, that station
already exists. It’s called Men And Motors. Horrified by the comparison, ITV broadcasting chief executive Mick Desmond was quick to point out "It’s going to be a male-biased channel but it’s absolutely not Men and Motors. It’s going to have a more populist feel."

More populist than Men And Motors? More populist than a channel that has a show called Jo Guest’s Steam Room? The only male-targeted channel more populist than that is Babestation, the uber-sleazy channel where dingy men phone girls up and make them jiggle about in their knickers.

Actually, no. For once, ITV isn’t mixing up ‘populist’ and ‘lowest common denominator’. The channel, we’re told,  will feature men’s things, like sport and police dramas and US sitcoms.

The
puzzling thing about all this is the justification behind it. The ITV
bigwigs tell us there needs to be a male-based channel to balance out ITV2 and ITV3.
ITV2 is aimed towards females, and ITV3 is the upmarket channel.
Really? Everyone was under the impression that ITV2 was for programmes
not good enough for ITV1, and ITV3 was for programmes not good enough
for ITV2.

If you consider that ITV thought Celebrity Wrestling wasn’t just good enough for ITV1, it was good enough to be broadcast at the same time as Dr Who
(DVDs) on ITV1, then you know what to expect from ITVs 2 and 3. So, going by
this theory, ITV4 will be for shows so brain-crackingly woeful that
ITV1, ITV2 and ITV3 wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole.

So at least they’ll have found a home for Celebrity Love Island, then.

[story by Stuart Heritage]