HBO is brilliant, isn’t it? All that fighting and nudity and swearing is brilliant and daring and expensive and everybody loves it. And that’s why the soon-to-be-launched ITV4 is aiming to be Britain’s answer to HBO.

But will ITV4 be filled with HBO-style specially-commissioned, hard-hitting comedies and dramas that constantly push the envelope of what is acceptable entertainment?

Their biggest profile launch show is an imported remake of Kojak. So we’re thinking that’ll be a no…

Maybe we’re being a bit hard on ITV4. They’re doing their best to
come up with a channel aimed at men, and those pesky men are a tricky
bunch to aim for – without turning into a dribbling, damp-trousered
Babestation clone, anyway.

Perhaps it was a mistake to crow so loudly about Kojak – a
spectacularly rubbish-sounding remake starring Ving Rhames as
Lieutenant Theo Kojak – when most of their other output sounds really
rather good.

We’re promised nightly instalments of David Letterman and repeats of
The Larry Saunders Show – two of the best TV shows in all of creation,
both of which have been splattered half-heartedly across terrestrial
channels in the past.

Viewers will also get hard-hitting feature-length documentaries, like
Outfoxed and The Hunting Of The President, and decent sports too.
Decent-ish, anyway, if you ignore the inclusion of the Tour De France.

Nigel Pickard, ITV Controller of Channels, said:

“Our
research found that there is a large and important
audience of males aged 25-44 who are not attracted to ITV1’s mainstream
programmes. They are heavily into the internet and technology. If they
are watching television, they want edgy films, gritty drama,
documentaries presenting alternative viewpoints, American comedy and
lots of sport."

We don’t think that ITV4 will be too bad. But, hey, we probably thought the same thing about Celebrity Wrestling, and look what happened to that.

Read more:

New Kojak to be star of lads’ ITV – The Times

[story by Stuart Heritage]