five (that’s Channel Five to you and me) is set to take its first tentative steps into the world of multichannel with the launch of two new channels: five us (Five U.S.) and five life (not to be confused with Five Live). They’re both going to be launched on Freeview, which is good news, isn’t it? Nah.

I used to get quite excited whenever a new channel was added to Freeview’s lineup. But I’ve come to realise that most of the channels are utter crap. Also, most of the new channels have been squeezed in by reducing the picture quality. These days most Freeview channels just look like a load of pixelated, blocky shit — a step above YouTube.

Luckily, Channel Five has found the space for their new channels by buying part of Top Up TV and nicking all of their space. (Top Up TV is repositioning itself as a PVR service. The PVR will cost £180, then £9.99 per month. Any takers? No?) So at least Five’s new channels won’t look as though you’re watching them through a sieve.

But they sound as though they are going to be full of a load of insipid trash.

Five US features a mix of American drama, films, documentaries, sport and comedy…

Just like the original Channel Five then.

…while highlights from Five Life include the highly-acclaimed drama series Love My Way and the award-winning The Ellen Degeneres Show.

“Highlights” like some programme that nobody’s ever heard of, and a chat show hosted by somebody that everybody thought was left behind by the 1990s.

Let’s face it: these channels are going to be filled with programmes that aren’t even good enough to be shown on Channel Five. And is there anybody who thinks that Channel Five has enough material to fill even one channel?

People said the same when ITV launched ITV3, which the last time I looked was the third-biggest multichannel channel (behind Sky One and ITV2). That doesn’t make its content any good though. ITV3 is filled with twenty year old dramas that look as though they were filmed in an actual theatre, and probably should have stayed in the theatre aswell.

Meanwhile, ITV2 has become the home of uninspired spin-offs called things like The X-Factor X-treme DX Reloaded Uber Edition the Third On ITV2 (I think that’s also the name of Gilette’s new razor). Either that or it’s showing some wet Holywood chick flick or teen movie.

ITV4 is the worst of them all, especially when you consider that ITV essentially removed Men & Motors to make space for it. Like Men & Motors, ITV4 is meant to be aimed at blokes. But whereas Men & Motors had the well-known brand, fanbase and reasonable programming, ITV4 doesn’t.

Can anybody actually think of any progammes that ITV4 shows? The only one I can think of is David Letterman, which already had a perfectly good home on ITV2. Indeed, since they moved Letterman to ITV4 you would think that they would show it at a decent slot, but it still occupies the same irregular post-midnight slot. You could only hope of catching it if you came back late from the pub and happened to be flicking past ITV4.

ITV isn’t the only company polluting Freeview. Channel 4 has also done a disappointing job. E4 is okay, but it promises a lot more than it ever delivers. It should be showing more experimental British programmes. But most of the time it shows cheap American imports that are superficially good looking but are ultimately as appealing as stapling your bumcheeks together. The one thing going for the channel is E4 Music, which actually shows a decent variety of music. It certainly does a much better job than The Hits or TMF.

The jury is out on Film4. I have watched a few films that I wouldn’t have seen anywhere else, but the number of repeats already is worrying. I don’t think it’s quite delivering.

Then there is More4, another channel that seemed promising but you never seem to watch it. Again, does anybody know what this channel shows? There is The Daily Show, if you can remember to watch it. But is there anything else? Whenever I flick past it, it seems to be showing repeats of Noel Edmonds’ Imaginary Telephone Conversations.

The channel launched in a blaze of publicity with A Very Social Secretary, but has produced nothing notable since then. More4 is obviously hungry for more of that kind of publicity — it’s only gone and shot George Bush. Please.

Then there is the BBC. In fairness, the BBC’s digital channels have produced much more quality programmes than its commercial rivals have. But still something seems to be lacking. BBC Three in particular seems to have completely lost its way.

In fairness, a lot of BBC Three’s troubles seem to stem from the ridiculous rules and quotas that the Department of Culture, Media and Sport imposed on the channel. It famously told the BBC that BBC Three must show news in order to distinguish itself from commercial rivals, then later criticised the news programme because nobody watched it!

A couple of years ago, on the crest of the Little Britain wave, BBC Three seemed like a quite a good channel actually. Don’t forget that BBC Three was also the home of The Mighty Boosh and Monkey Dust, two fine programmes.

But since then it has produced reams of steaming poo like Tittybangbang (officially the world’s least funny comedy) and Grownups (a flimsy script coupled with dreadfully wooden acting, this makes Two Pints look like a bloody masterpiece). Even Rob Brydon seemed to be shat up with the misfiring Anually Retentive.

Since ditching the 7 O’Clock News, BBC Three seems to have filled its current affairs quota with documentaries by complete dullards wittering on about their tiny penii. And people think bloggers are self-indulgent! And let’s not forget those awful programmes about parenting. If I want to see lots of toddlers with potty mouths I’ll go to the supermarket.

The whole tone of the channel is unbearable aswell. Why are those continuity announcers trying to be my mate? It is contrived, unfunny and annoying.

BBC Four is pretty good at what it does. And let’s face it, most of BBC Three’s best programmes would probably fit easily on BBC Four. Vaguely decent comedy shows like Screen Wipe or Don’t Watch That Watch This do fine on BBC Four, so why not? Sometimes it feels as if the Beeb uses the word ‘youth’ as a proxy for ’shit’. So they should do with that shit what everybody else does with it. BBC Three should probably just be thrown in the toilet, and the BBC could concentrate on just the one digital channel.

I seem to be having trouble posting a comment on Will’s blog, so I’ll say my bit here. He gives us advance warning that this week’s edition of Charlie Brooker’s Screen Wipe is a 50 minute long US edition, which means that it clashes with Time Trumpet! I wouldn’t have realised that!

Did they mention it at the end of last week’s Screen Wipe? I didn’t notice it. It’s pretty poor scheduling aswell. Surely there will be a lot of people who want to watch both Time Trumpet and Screen Wipe. I guess I’ll be watching the repeat of Screen Wipe then.

Update: Here is some related advice from Harry Hutton. Hear hear!

Music channels really are a load of pish. Apparently it is cheaper to run a music channel than it is to publish a magazine. And it shows. This is probably why Emap like to milk every last droplet out of their magazine brands while the magazines themselves have gone the way of the dodo (hello, Smash Hits!).

Freeviewers like myself have two and two-halves options. There is The Hits and TMF — the two halves being E4 Music and E4+1 Music+1 or whatever it may be called. I have to say that E4 really must be applauded for actually making music television watchable. You can tell they’ve put in a bit of effort to make it a bit more diverse, aiming for a more discerning audience. It’s just a shame that if I ever have a day free to dispose of by vegging in front of a glowing square, I am hardly ever up early enough to watch E4 Music.

The Hits and TMF are just diabolical though. When I first got Freeview I found it difficult to believe quite how many adverts they were broadcasting. Every three videos or so it would be time for another commercial break — one long enough for you to flick through all the other channels at least twice. And there are the adverts themselves of course. All for ‘ringtone clubs’ aimed at people with the intelligence of a fish.

Even worse are these new quiz subscriptions, which are like some evil combination of quiz channels and ringtone clubs. I wonder if anybody has yet won that £2000 they were giving away to one lucky person who was stupid enough to subscribe but clever enough to know that another name for ‘money machine’ is ‘blackbox’. …What?

Despite the fact that it appears to be so cheap to run a music channel, I saw recently that The Hits has jumped onto the quiz channel bandwaggon. At least it’s very late at night. What gets me is that they’ve decided to squeeze in a couple of hours of Teleshopping as well! I mean really! Do we really need yet more Teleshopping?!

Meanwhile, TMF is the home for amusing technical glitches. If you’ve ever watched TMF late at night you will no doubt be aware of ‘Matchmaker X-rated’, the on-screen money-making scheme that encourages twelve-year-old nincompoops to text their name and date of birth which in turn makes the ‘Matchmaker’ generate some random naughty text. A typical caption might say, “Ooh, you just made the computer cum in your eye. Try felching her ear tonight.” Well that once went out during the day.

Andrew at Cage of Monkeys has his own idea for a music channel:

NO ZANE LOWE!

Give that man an EPG number!

In the process, Andrew linked to this blog of interesting music videos. Definitely one to subscribe to. I like this video for Jamie Lidell’s ‘New Me’. It reminds me a bit of those smart BBC Four idents. Must have been a chore to time it all.

It appears as though the Labour Party is even worse than The Thick of It. (Via)

Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn column is becoming a television series. Could be one to watch, because Brooker’s columns often actually make me laugh.