Not my turn of phrase, but the description chosen by the BBC for a large scale piece of research they conducted in the wake of the incident featuring Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand and some tasteless remarks broadcast on Radio 2. The research is indeed extensive, and the headlines are helpfully summarised in a report which makes for some interesting reading.

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If you’ve ever contacted Channel 4’s viewer enquiries centre in Belfast, you’ll know that we have an enthusiastic team there who are a font of useful information about anything and everything to do with the channel. read more

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Twitter has been in the media a lot in recent months. Surgery Live was the second of three experiments to come out of Channel 4’s cross-platform department using this increasingly popular ‘microblogging’ service in connection with television programmes. The experiment reflects the increasingly common habit of ‘Twittering’ whilst watching TV, plugging in to that behaviour in the context of a bold, educative factual television series - importantly a live one. read more

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We have a small but steady number of complaints about the levels of background music in certain programmes that appear to be drowning out the commentary for some viewers.  A recent post on this website about the background music levels in Time Team: The Secrets of Stonehenge led me to a very knowledgeable person indeed – the series editor for Time Team was trained as a sound engineer at the BBC so he was able to explain to me in some detail how background music levels are set and what can go wrong between the perfect conditions of a recording studio and the ears of the viewer at home.

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It came as something of a surprise to read a number of complaints accusing a contestant on Come Dine with Me of making racist remarks - it’s not a programme that normally attracts anything other than warm compliments! read more

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Perhaps it will come as no surprise to discover a show like Sex Education v Pornography polarises opinion. It was the most praised programme in April, attracting positive comments from a range of viewers from teenagers to grand-parents. It also attracted over 100 critical comments, so I spoke to the commissioning editor, Walter Iuzzolino, to get his reaction to some of your criticisms. read more

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Two years ago I sat down with the head of production company Betty to discuss making a series which follows people on the roller-coaster journey through the process of adoption. Two years on, and just as the adopters themselves have gone through their own intense emotional highs and lows, we’ve also had our fair share of roller-coaster moments making Find Me a Family! read more

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If you’ve got something to say about any aspect of Channel 4 and the programmes it broadcasts, The TV Show gives you a place to have your say and a chance to put your questions to the programme makers. read more

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We are today announcing the closure of the Channel 4 forums. We’ve been running for the forums for a long time and they have been hugely popular, notwithstanding some grumbles about the moderation! However, we have recently made a significant investment in channel4.com to allow much more viewer interaction across the whole site – many of the pages already allow comments and we are planning to develop this further in the future. We have also invested in several community oriented websites, such as Sexperience (in support of the Sex Education Show), Embarrassing Bodies and E4.com, and blogs such as this one. This investment has co-incided with one of the most difficult economic periods in broadcast history and we are having to take some very difficult decisions, on top of the significant reduction in staff across Channel 4 that took place at the end of last year. read more

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