Abstract:

Channel Four is a U.K. national television channel, set up in 1982 and today accounts for around 10% of all viewing. It is financed from the sale of commercial airtime but it is not a private enterprise. It is, effectively, a public service organisation that as well as being a general broadcaster is given certain requirements within U.K. broadcasting. Those requirements are : a) to ensure that Channel Four programmes contain a suitable proportion of material calculated to appeal to tastes and interests not generally catered for by Channel 3 (ITV) b) that innovation and experiment in the form and content of those programmes are encouraged and:- c) generally that Channel Four is given a distinctive character of its own. Four has thus to plough its way between the interests of ’public service broadcasting’ and the interest of commercial survival. It is within this context that one can see the importance of audience reaction data to us.