E4 survives its first year

Ali G expressed the channel's young, funky brand image

Channel 4's pay-TV channel E4 celebrates its first birthday on Friday.

The channel, aimed at 16 to 34-year-olds, was launched with a fanfare of publicity, a cool, young image and £40m of investment.

But few observers would have predicted a year ago how difficult the multi-channel market would have become.

E4 viewers see Friends months before terrestrial viewers

Analysts are divided as to how well - or badly - the channel has fared in its first year.

E4 was set up to lure young adult viewers - one of the most difficult demographic strands to capture - back to TV with a station designed for them.

E4 was launched with custom-made links from Ali G and was able to screen hit shows like Friends and ER six months before Channel 4 viewers were able to see them.

E4 commissioned 19 new shows in its first year

The channel commissioned 19 new shows in its first year, of which five or six - including Banzai, As If, Five Go Dating and Chained - have been or will be recommissioned.

Six E4 shows have transferred to Channel 4, a reward for the risk-taking atmosphere at the new station.

Brand

And the channel claims that its modest audience target - an 0.8% audience share in multi-channel homes - has been met.

Big Brother bolstered E4's ratings significantly

It also says that the channel's brand is strong and attractive for such a new venture.

But E4 has its critics, and not just from rival channels.

It is clear that the station will continue making a loss for some years, yet the audience penetration - as with most other brands in the multi-channel market - is tiny.

Sceptics say that the only real ratings hit on E4 was Big Brother - also carried in a different format on Channel 4 - and that without the Big Brother effect, the E4 audience share would be nearer 0.5%.

Surreal betting show Banzai is one of E4's most successful programmes

There is also the question of how exposed the E4 investment will leave Channel 4 in such a difficult TV market.

It is a market which will only become more difficult in 2002, with ITV2 now on Sky Digital and the BBC's digital service BBC Three waiting in the wings - if Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell gives it her approval.

But, while acknowledging the difficulties ahead, E4 still maintains that its offer - which launch controller Kevin Lygo jokingly described as Channel 4 without the boring factual bits - is on course to start feeding profit back to its parent by 2005.