By FRANCES GRANT
It's hard to believe that respectable, grown-up television networks were once scrapping over cartoon yobbos Beavis and Butthead. But that's how low things went in the days when TVNZ and CanWest were fierce competitors for the young and hip.
In the dying days of TV4, before it transmutes into
a music channel next month, it's time to remember how it led the charge, going boldly where none had gone before, out into the high-risk territory of cool.
When the channel was launched in 1997 amid much hype, it invented a new demographic which crossed the generations to appeal to hip young things and older things who wanted to be young forever.
Then-general manager Bettina Hollings said the channel would build a new mass audience of the young and the "neoyoung", aka "screenagers".
Sadly not. The screenagers must have been too busy earning the dosh to buy real estate and those SUVs they need to drive to the supermarket.
Even in its heyday, TV4 struggled for ratings and respect. Unlike its brief Beavis and Butthead rival, TVNZ's MTV, the channel didn't even manage to die young. For the past couple of years, it has eked out a miserable existence, starving on a diet of repeats and mostly forgettable movies.
But before its rebirth as radio with pictures, it's worth recounting the brave young battler's highlights and achievements.
The excitement and the frisson began as the channel blasted into being with um, well, boxing, a transparent bid to get viewers to take a look at the new teen on the block.
While it never made a dent in the ratings with its welter of MTV shows and edgy British comedy it did succeed in interfering with TV One's transmission, sparking outraged letters to the editor from One News watchers over who had so rudely interrupted Richard and Judy. The groovy yoof vibe didn't stop there. Although not quite out of the slippers and the cardy, TV One has got slightly funkier and more interested in attracting a younger audience since the brief flowering of yoof TV.
The invention of theme nights, such as "Make Out Monday" and "Sci Fi Tuesday", made for a better oriented night's viewing and helped viewers to accessorise correctly — the fishnets or the antennae, for example.
The channel pioneered a creative Maori language show for children, Tumeke, which inspired the equally appealing Pukana.
In a rare dramatic outburst, TV4 had the appointment show of the year with British twentysomething drama This Life, a show much imitated, never equalled.
The Simpsons were first, but the channel took the once-innocent art forms of claymation and animation to extremes never likely — or needing — to be bettered, with South Park, Daria, The Family Guy and Crapston Villas.
It made morals campaigner, the Rev Graham Capill, sick with its cutting-edge gay drama, Queer As Folk. And it gave us the 1980s nostalgia evening which made us wonder why we ever gave up the shoulder pads.
When others failed, TV4 remained devoted to original teen drama Beverly Hills 90210, a loyalty which has never faltered. With achievements like this, how could a yoof channel go wrong? Sadly, the days of building a new mass audience were gone, scattered to the plethora of pay channels, the internet, Play Stations and other entertainment.
What mass remains in front of the box aren't up for edgy Brit comedy but, as a glance at the schedules will tell you, the endless mediocrity of reality telly. Such hipsters as are left will have to make do with a mindless stream of music vids.
By FRANCES GRANT
It's hard to believe that respectable, grown-up television networks were once scrapping over cartoon yobbos Beavis and Butthead. But that's how low things went in the days when TVNZ and CanWest were fierce competitors for the young and hip.
In the dying days of TV4, before it transmutes into
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