Channel 4 headquarters in Horseferry Road, London. Philip Toscano / PA Wire/Press Association Images. All rights reservedThere are many ways to recite the history of Channel 4 and many people whose actions and arguments provide the pivotal points in its coming to pass. That it came into existence at all is amazing, given how vested interests operate in the UK and given the forces stacked against innovation and against pluralism within the reigning institutions. And yet, one day in 1982, a national television channel went on the air fed by some 200 new enterprises that had sprung into existence seemingly overnight.
The origins of Channel 4 lie in a public debate or, rather, a widespread discontent, which arose during the later 1960s of which the key word was ‘access’. With the establishment of BBC2 in 1964, television moved to the centre of cultural life in the UK. The medium was no longer just a source of popular entertainment and daily news. It had come to provide opportunities for serious new drama and serious debate. It fed hungrily off the new movements in politics, music, literature, not to speak of the new ‘underground’ youth culture. ITV, too, was starting to play a more determined part in reflecting the ideas and controversies of that era of global rebellion.
