E4 boss wants 'event TV' to replace 'BB'

Head of E4 Angela Jain has revealed that she wants to replace Big Brother with "event" TV.

Jain claimed that it was a "bittersweet moment" losing the long-running Endemol reality series and admitted that it will be a tough task filling up the newly-vacant hours of airtime in 2011.

"What I will miss from Big Brother is the sense of event it brings to a digital channel," she told DS. "It will be a real challenge to try and replace that - not in a like for like sense - but just something which embodies that."

She explained that "comedy and drama" will be at the top of her priority list for E4, but that she is also looking into spending money on new US acquistions.

Jain argued that Channel 4 and Big Brother's decade-long relationship has left a "fantastic legacy" and a "cultural impact" beyond TV.

"Seeing normal people on TV, seeing people of different shapes and sizes, seeing a black man win a reality show, seeing a man with Tourettes win a reality show; all these things we take for granted now," she said. "Big Brother put all these things on our screens, never mind all the technology innovations the show brought about with the way it's filmed."

> Click here to read our full exclusive Q&A session with Angela Jain