Channel 4 promised innovation – but has it achieve that? (Picture: Rex)

The date was 2 November 1982. The time 4.45pm.

As spiralling colourful fragments jumped into action to light up our screens, tumbling together to create a now iconic number four, a voice said: ‘Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to be able to say to you, welcome to Channel 4.’

This was a moment a new era of TV was launched with the promise of interesting and boundary-pushing programming, with viewers soon introduced to the unforgettable tick tock of the Countdown them tune, and Richard Whiteley’s loveable smiling face beaming into sitting rooms across the nation to welcome this brand new audience to a brand new channel.

Later, Channel 4 News ran for very the first time, fronted by Peter Sissons and Trevor McDonald, while the now defunct drama Brookside made it’s debut as part of the launch night line-up.

Viewers were also treated to a new groundbreaking music show called The Tube – fronted by then unknowns Paula Yates and Jools Holland.

Although much has changed for the channel in the past 40 years, a lot has stayed the same.

Channel 4 has been the home of many firsts; the first pre-watershed lesbian kiss on TV; the first hit comedy show to have a majority disabled panel; and the first time a transgender comedian stripped naked and played piano with her penis. 

And while TV’s ‘fourth channel’ may have reached middle age, its content remains young – and still controversial.

Born in 1982, C4’s aim was to ‘create change through entertainment by representing unheard voices, challenging with purpose and reinventing entertainment’.

Over the years, it’s pioneered shows like Queer as Folk, Eurotrash and Brass Eye, which have attracted critical acclaim as well as scores of complaints. More recently, the channel received a lambasting for asking whether it should destroy Hitler’s paintings on controversial commission Jimmy Carr Destroys Art.

Two decades ago, German anatomist Gunther von Hagens performed the first public autopsy in the UK for 170 years before a 500-strong audience at a London theatre. Channel 4 chose to broadcast it, inviting a then record-breaking 130 Ofcom complaints.

More recently, the channel smashed that record when transgender comedian Jordan Gray stripped off her clothes and played the keyboard with her penis on Friday Night Live, airing just last month. The audience loved it, but the show received more than 1,400 Ofcom complaints.

Richard Whiteley was Countdown’s original presenter (Picture: John Rogers/TV Times/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

Eurotrash was perhaps Channel 4’s most outrageous show, starring Antoine de Caunes and Jean-Paul Gaultier (Picture: NEIL MUNNS/AFP via Getty Images)

With all this in mind, it’s hard to believe the channel was established by the Thatcher government.

For twenty years, creative visionaries had been lobbying for a new channel. BBC One and Two, and ITV, felt rigid and locked; in the 60s, young programme makers, writers, directors, artists and performers wanted a broadcaster that was more accessible. By 1970, the Government had opened up a debate on the possibility of a fourth channel.

In a bid to break out of the restrictive broadcasting of BBC and ITV, the channel was set up to invite ‘independent and distinctive, universal content’.

As the years ticked by, the publicly owned but commercially funded Channel 4 constantly evolved to include the streaming service All 4, as well as a network of 12 television channels featuring Channel 4, E4, More4, Film4, 4seven and The Box Plus Network, including 4Music.

The channel also made a name for itself in pioneering factual content. Not only did it champion the reality TV genre when it broadcast Big Brother in 2000, alongside a 24-hour live feed, but documentary series like Dispatches and Cutting Edge continue to break ground and lead the news agenda.

Big Brother in 2004, nine years before its return next year (Picture: Bruno Vincent/Getty Images)

Naomi Gayler worked on many Channel 4 shows and cites its success in its innovative use of rigged cameras (Picture: Supplied)

Since 2008, they have pioneered the fixed rig format, whereby unobtrusive robotic cameras and atmospheric microphones capture real-life events, such as on the maternity wards in One Born Every Minute.

The absence of camera crews enable shows to present a more authentic view, says freelance Executive Producer Naomi Gayler, who has spent a large part of her career making shows for the channel. 

‘Channel 4 was a real pioneer of rig access series like 24 Hours in A&E, which is now in its 29th series,’ she tells Metro.co.uk. ‘It’s proven hugely popular, has won awards and has led to other shows like 24 Hours in Police Custody, the Educating… series and Royal Navy School. 

‘People love these shows because they give such an intimate look into a world which is actually quite private; inside a hospital cubicle with the curtains drawn or in resus where someone is fighting for their life. It gives a really intimate look into worlds they will hopefully never encounter.’

‘It’s also important for society as a whole as it makes people feel gratitude for these services and people that are working so hard in the front line,’ adds Naomi. ‘Teachers and others in these key jobs aren’t always paid very well, and viewers tell me they loved these series because they make us realise how fortunate we are to have these services.’

But that doesn’t mean the channel always gets it right, as some of their biggest shows over the last 40 years have received fierce scrutiny. Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush came under fire recently, when Victoria Beckham condemned Chris Evans for weighing her live on TV in 1999 – just weeks after she’d given birth.

Meanwhile, in 2007, the channel received an unprecedented, stinging rebuke from Ofcom over its handling of the Celebrity Big Brother race row, that resulted in more than 54,000 complaints around the treatment and bullying of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty.

Some viewers have also asked if there needs to be quite so much sex on the channel. Michael Grade, now Tory peer, was nicknamed ‘pornographer-in-chief’ when he led Channel 4 from 1988-1997 and commissioned shows The Word, Eurotrash and Dyke TV.

Carolyn Jackson-Brown thinks Channel 4 has been a champion of diversity (Picture: Sasha Jackson-Brown)

Nonetheless, C4 has also been instrumental in promoting disability and diversity across its platforms, says Carolyn Jackson-Brown, author of Disability, the Media and the Paralympic Games.

The decision for the channel to air the Paralympic Games in 2012 changed broadcasting history, she argues, as it altered the way viewers perceived disability.

‘One of the channel’s remit is of public service broadcasting, which means everybody in Britain ought to be able to see themselves [on screen] at some point, and recognise who they see,’ she explains, ‘Just like gay men saw themselves only as camp, and accentuated as stereotypes and caricatures, it was the same for disability.

‘In 2012, there was a shift in how disability was portrayed on television because people who worked at Channel 4 decided to treat the Paralympic athletes like Olympians, instead of patronising them. They had a disability executive called Alison Walsh who was given executive powers. That had never happened before on the Paralympics or other shows.’

Channel 4’s decision to broadcast the 2012 Paralympic Games arguably changed disability visibility forever (Picture: Marcus Hartmann/Getty Images)

The channel threw a huge advertising budget at the Paralympics, with the Meet the Superhumans campaign, which presented the Olympics as a warm-up event for the real thing. It was a huge success and the channel achieved some of the highest ratings in its history. 

The campaign also led to the launch of The Last Leg, which began as a Paralympics commentary show before it became a weekly late night show presented by Adam Hills, Alex Brooker and Josh Widdecombe.

Carolyn adds: ‘That was a really important step. Josh Widdicombe, the able person, was the odd one out. And they used to laugh at him, rather than the other way round. The hosts got themselves on the topical satire chat circuit and that totally changed the acceptability of – why shouldn’t people with disabilities appear in public places, public spaces in the media, or wherever they like?’

However, now, the future of the channel hangs in the balance.

In April this year, the government published its broadcasting White Paper confirming that it plans to sell off Channel 4.

It’s A Sin portrayed the reality of the Aids epidemic in the 1980s (Picture: Channel 4)

Derry Girls was undoubtedly a hit show for C4 (Picture: Channel Four)

This could end the broadcaster’s special model of relying on independent production companies to make programmes, and reinvesting profits in new shows. If it becomes privately-owned, Channel 4 will not be required to do this, which will hurt the many small production companies, say campaigners.

Maggie Brown, the author of two books about the broadcaster, A Licence to be Different: the Story of Channel 4 and From Big Brother to the Great British Bake Off, says the channel has a lot to be thanked for in the boom of British creative industries.

‘I hope Channel 4 can continue to thrive as a strange but effective hybrid, publicly owned but funded by advertising which it sells itself, and not a burden on tax payers,’ she says. ‘It is far from perfect and can offend people but it is never dull.

‘Every now and then it really punches through with something startling, for example, with the drama It’s a Sin about the scourge of Aids in the 1980s, or comedy such as Derry Girls.

Its staffers actively seek out new talent and help those new to television onto air – the acclaimed film director Steve McQueen went from a gallery artist to becoming an Oscar winner for Twelve Years A Slave.

‘I hope the Government does not opt for a quick sale and allows it to continue in its endeavours, and as a public service free to all viewers. It is a quirky British invention we should be proud of.’

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TV’s ‘fourth channel’ may have reached middle age, but its content remains controversial.