1982
At 4.44pm on Tuesday 2 November 1982, that multicoloured “4” logo formed on our screens and announcer Paul Coia intoned: “Good afternoon. It’s a pleasure to be able to say to you: welcome to Channel 4.” There followed an arty clip montage set to Fourscore, the channel’s theme music for the next decade. The opening show was Countdown, meaning the first face seen on the fledgling channel was genial host Richard Whiteley’s. He greeted viewers with: “As the countdown to a brand new channel ends, a brand new countdown begins.” And we were off. Vowel, please… Photograph: Public Domain
1991
The Word’s mix of live music, inane chat and shambolic features pioneered the notion of “post-pub telly”. Notorious moments were many: drunken guests, Shabba Ranks’s homophobia, L7 guitarist Donita Sparks dropping her denims… The Word also hosted the UK TV debut of Nirvana, during which Kurt Cobain announced: “Courtney Love is the best fuck in the world.” Producer Charlie Parsons admitted: “A Channel 4 exec told us that if she went to a dinner party and The Word wasn’t being attacked by the chattering classes, it wasn’t doing its job.” Photograph: Public Domain
1994
Noisy morning show The Big Breakfast ran for a decade from 1992 to 2002 and enjoyed two heydays: the Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin-fronted beginnings (also featuring puppet aliens Zig and Zag), then the Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen era of the late 90s. A fixture in the early years was Paula Yates – whose husband Bob Geldof’s company, Planet 24, made the show – interviewing celebrities on a bed. Her flagrant flirting with INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, all writhing, footsie and giggling, was an astonishingly intimate prelude to their doomed affair. Photograph: Public Domain
1994
Running for 21 years from Channel 4’s launch, Phil Redmond’s scouse soap opera was a controversy magnet, thanks to plotlines about drugs, domestic abuse, incest and bodies buried under patios. It hit the headlines hardest when it broadcast TV’s first ever pre-watershed lesbian kiss, a 19-second snog between knitwear-clad characters Beth Jordache (Anna Friel) and Margaret Clemence (Nicola Stephenson). The episode pulled in 9 million viewers, had Mary Whitehouse up in arms, made a star of Friel, and was included in a montage at Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening ceremony. Photograph: Channel 4
1995
NBC’s sitcom about six glossy-haired, dazzlingly dentured Manhattanites launched in autumn 1994 and arrived here the following April. It grew into the world’s biggest TV show and was hugely influential for Channel 4. The station became known for screening the finest US imports (ER and Dawson’s Creek were also on its roster), while Friday night comedy became worth staying in for, as Friends was scheduled with home-grown cult hits such as Father Ted, Trigger Happy TV and Spaced. The show lasted 10 series and was repeated until Channel 4’s rights ran out last year. Photograph: Rex Features
1999
Five years after Brookside’s lesbian kiss came Queer as Folk, a designer drama about gay men living in Manchester, written by Russell T Davies. Episode one included an unapologetically explicit bedroom scene between ad man Stuart (Aiden Gillen) and 15-year-old schoolboy Nathan (Charlie Hunnam). Gillen recalled watching it with his Irish mother: “She said, ‘How are they actually doing that?’ And my brother-in-law told her, ‘It’s trick photography.’” The series got remade by US network Showtime, Gillan and Hunnam headed for Hollywood, while Davies went on to reboot Doctor Who for the Beeb. Photograph: Channel 4
2000
It was initially billed as a social experiment rather than entertainment, and Big Brother began in low-key style. That is, until stockbroker Nicholas Bateman decided to play the game – lying to his housemates and manipulating their nominations via secret handwritten notes. When his housemates confronted him around the dining table on day 35, lunchtime on a Thursday, millions watched events unfold on the web stream and more tuned in to that night’s highlights. Evicted for violating the rules, Bateman was dubbed “Nasty Nick” and “the most hated man in Britain”. Our obsession with reality TV was born. Photograph: Channel 4
2005
England hadn’t won a Test series against arch foes Australia for 18 years, so when a dramatic ding-dong contest ensued, it gripped the nation. Channel 4 had beaten the BBC and Sky to the rights seven years previously and now it was payback time. The most thrilling Ashes ever went down to the wire, drawing peak ratings of 8.4 million viewers and an average 23% audience share, a record for Channel 4 at the time. Its contract expired after the victory parade and Sky has had the rights since. The September 2005 Oval match remains the last Test to be broadcast live on terrestrial TV. Halcyon days. Photograph: Tom Shaw/Getty Images
2002
Hat-wearing anatomist-cum-showman Gunther von Hagens – whose Body Worlds exhibition of “plastinated” cadavers has toured worldwide – performed Britain’s first public autopsy for 170 years in front of a 500-strong east London audience and Channel 4 cameras. Experts insisted that dissecting the corpse of a 72-year-old German man was illegal under the Anatomy Act, but Channel 4 showed it anyway, provoking a record 130 complaints to Ofcom. Other controversial live events followed, with Derren Brown playing russian roulette and conducting a seance, plus last month’s Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial. Photograph: Channel 4
2010
Big Fat Gypsy Weddings began life as a Cutting Edge documentary about Romany and Irish Traveller girls. When it surprised everyone by attracting ratings in excess of 6 million, Channel 4 commissioned a series. It’s been accused of misrepresenting the Traveller community and reinforcing stereotypes. Channel 4 also took flak over its poster campaign for series two (slogan: “Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier”). But the franchise remains its biggest hit for years, pulling in 8.8 million viewers at its peak and making an accidental star out of former bare-knuckle boxer Paddy Doherty, who went on to win Celebrity Big Brother. Photograph: Sam Frost/Channel 4
