More4′s stupid promotion

Posted on 12th October, 2005 by

A brand new TV channel appeared this week, called More4, which is being promoted to the over-30s as an “adult entertainment channel”, according to this report featuring “the best of documentaries, smart films, quality news and contemporary drama”. Only, you wouldn’t know that from the promotional material which has appeared everywhere, like the huge billboard poster featuring a whole line of people with a Sikh-looking guy in a standard turban and a short skirt in the middle. You’d think it meant what “adult” commonly means when applied to entertainment - a euphemism for pornography.

Well, according to a piece by Tim Gardam, principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford and a former programme director at Channel 4, on page 49 of today’s Evening Standard, it actually isn’t that at all. As with Channel 5, it opened with news - in this case, from the daughter of the late Labour leader John Smith. Channel 5 actually did run a lot of late-night porn, until 60s entertainer Adam Faith, in his dying breath, called it “all shit” and “a waste of space”.

More4’s first proper programme was a drama based on David Blunkett’s love life; tonight, however, they had a 95-minute feature on James Miller, the British cameraman who was killed by an Israeli soldier in 2003. After this came a Rory Bremner “special” about 40 years of political scandals. OK, it moved fairly quickly from Profumo to Cecil Parkinson to David Mellor. But it’s not porn.

But I know from personal contacts within the station that some sort of feature on Muslims is being prepared, and most Muslims will not want to be seen dead on a channel they believe to be a porn channel. Of course, I can state it clearly here that More4’s not a porn channel, but far more people see More4’s posters than my blog. Someone really needs a good kick up the backside over these dumb posters - better still, kick them out of the company.

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  • Issam Ahmed

    It astounds me how you can make the connection between an innocuous looking poster featuring some highly respected Channel 4 stars (including the legendary Jon Snow) and pornography.

    The word ‘Adult’ wasn’t supposed to imply ‘Porn’ in this instance at all - rather it is there to distinguish between television aimed at teens and television aimed at the 30+, affluent, educated and mature demographic.

    Channel 4 were very clear and open about this and reviews in the papers talked about it a lot. Any right-thinking muslim wouldn’t hesitate to participate in the a program knowing Channel 4’s long history of progressivism and balanced reporting (for ex. they were the first channel to interview Moazzam Baig when he was released from Guantanamo), even IF the channel is also at times risquee and guilty of catering to the baser desires of the British viewing public.

    As long as the documentary iteslf is one of integrity and in the public service, why not? And please don’t throw a fit about seeing a Sikh guy in a kilt. It’s only a bit of fun.

  • AT Webby

    Salaam,

    It’s a kilt.

    AT

  • thabet

    The point of advertising is to get people at least talking about the product if not watching/buying. You’re blogging about it: so they’ve succeded.

  • haroon

    The sikh guy is called Hamish from Meet the Magoons.

  • http://reflectionsofamuslim.blogspot.com/ Maqbool

    I have to agree with Yusuf. The TV adverts for this new channel by Ch 4 led me to believe that it would be a ‘pornographic’ complete with suggestive voice and explicit ‘noises’ in the background.

  • http://www.pickledpolitics.com Sunny

    Well, calling it ‘adult entertainment’ is meant to be ambiguous. Adult as in saucy, but also more high-brow.

    The sikh guy in the kilt is Hardeep Singh Kohli, who wrote the Magoons, as the gentleman above pointed out.