Comment: Do we really want Channel 4 plus one?

Of course we don't ... we want plus 24 instead

22 August 2007 9:00 GMT / By Stuart Miles

With the launch of Channel 4 +1, pseudo time-shifting TV has come to the mainstream.

But in a world of Personal Video Recorders, electronic programming guides and Sky+ do we really yet another TV channel that offers us the same programs but simply an hour later?

Personally I think TV stations are missing a trick here. If viewers are like me, they don't want plus one, they want plus 24 hours.

Think about it for a moment. How many times have you come into the office and experienced that water cooler moment where everyone is taking about a TV show that you missed last night?

How many times have you read one of those Last Night's TV columns and thought that sounds good? But then realised that you'll never see the program again unless by chance, about 3 years later, when you've caught a re-run on yet another newly launched channel while bored at your parents' house.

Okay, in some cases it doesn't matter. Want to watch Friends for example, and it's sure to be showing on one of the many Channel 4 channels at some point in the next 24 hours.

Windows XP users also seem to be in luck, especially if you've signed up for the BBC iPlayer beta programme or again Channel 4's 4oD service, both of which allow you to watch any show from the last month, but that doesn't help the 998 other channels floating around in the ether does it?

I'm sure to some executive somewhere, the thinking behind the plus one station makes sense; you've got in late from work (read pub) and you want to watch the program that's just finishing, so why not catch it again when on the plus one channel, but isn't that what Sky+ or the new Freeview boxes are for complete with Series Link functionality or the ability to text the box your recording requests?

Here's a middle of the road solution. If TV stations can't manage plus 24 how about plus 12, that way your daytime shows like the Jeremy Kyle show would become primetime viewing.

Now there's an idea.