[ACTV]

If only they'd signed the deal six months earlier and had had The Traitors thrown in instead. That does feel very C4, but very thankful it's ad-free on the BBC as it's perfectly paced at a full hour.

Gogglebox dominating Friday nights is part of the reason comedy has suffered to an extent - it's still there and getting commissioned but getting thrown around the schedule, but Big Boys is very C4 (and like the big C4 hits, more mainstream than you might first think) and easily the best comedy since Derry Girls.

As much as I'd like less Gogglebox on our screens now (it's gone from a weekly watch to something I'll watch if nothing else is on now) I do think there are potential spin-offs there with "Gogglebox Globe" looking at TV around the world and "Gogglebox Gold" kind of doing what those Grace Dent BBC4 shows did and looking back at TV from specific years. For me personally I'd find that more interesting now than just more episodes reviewing current TV which have become a bit routine.

Channel 4 certainly should try more with Friday nights, it seems they have lost all interest in trying anything new on the night aside and is now just a constant loop of Gogglebox, The Last Leg and anything involving Jimmy Carr, a far cry from the late-90s when it was anchored by the likes of Friends, Frasier, South Park, TFI Friday, Father Ted and eventually by the 00s the Big Brother eviction show, and that's just scratching the surface. As has been proven over the last few weeks, if a programme is good enough, given a decent level of promotion and scheduled correctly, it will pay off.

Shows like Big Boys would certainly freshen up Friday nights either at 9 or 10pm, and maybe they could try out more new British comedy there. I've always thought Taskmaster might be worth a try to add into the Friday 9pm rotation with Gogglebox and Catsdown (ideally some other shows added in too.) Just relatively small steps like that would stop it from feeling endlessly stale and repetitive, and give it an actual buzz.

Altogether I cannot see any of this innovation coming under the current leadership of C4 who only seem to value Bake Off, Gogglebox and to a lesser extent MAFS and Naked Attraction. I think Katz's departure is long overdue now.