The party's over for lavish TV press launches. But what about the real victims – us?

So the BBC and Channel 4 are having a hilarious catfight over who spends what on press launches and other shindigs. It makes Monkey all nostalgic for the good old days, when broadcasters threw wonderfully bacchanalian bashes in the hope that getting hacks pissed would make them more inclined to write nice things about the opening of a new show/channel/cupboard door. The crazy fools! Let's see: there was Channel 4's lavish Film4 launch do in a Kings Cross warehouse not a stone's thrown from New Guardian Towers. Channel 4, again, giving E4 an equally splendid welcome on Brick Lane. BBC3's launch in the old Saatchi Gallery in St John's Wood. A British TV distributor hiring a Russian warship for a party at the Mip programming market in Cannes. And biggest and best of all – BSkyB's Sky Digital launch at Battersea Power Station. Duran Duran on stage. Live crocodiles. The memory still brings Monkey a Proustian rush of the smell of zoo. Good times. But now the game's up, apparently. Stuff the future of public service broadcasting – where will us poor hacks get our free booze?