The focus on media in BBC Four's winter season comes against the backdrop of debate about excellence, quality and dumbing down as BBC Four asks if there ever was a golden age of British television.
Each evening, 'TV on Trial' features an entire evening's programming from one of the decades and two commentators -- a champion and a critic -- sit down to watch.
Janice Hadlow, controller of BBC Four, said: "In 'TV on Trial', BBC Four pits some of broadcasting's 'grumpy old men' against the 'new kids on the TV block' to answer, once and for all, has TV dumbed down? And were 'I, Claudius', 'Civilisation' and 'Brideshead Revisited' really as good as we remember?"
Over the course of an entire week, BBC Four invites prominent figures from the world of broadcasting into its "living room" to experience TV as it really was over the last six decades.
By pressing the red button, BBC Four viewers will be able to share the groans, snores and applause as the duo views the TV of yesteryear.
As part of the media focus, BBC Four also begins its media show 'The Desk', presented by Wallpaper founder Tyler Brule. 'The Desk' is promising to reach beyond the domestic agenda to cast its eye across the global media landscape.
Critic Kenneth Tynan, the first man to say "fuck" on live television and to bring nudity to the London stage, is the subject of a new drama for BBC Four this winter.
Written and directed by Chris Durlacher, the feature-length drama features Rob Brydon as Tynan, with Catherine McCormack as his wife Kathleen and Julian Sands as Sir Laurence Olivier.
'Death on the Staircase' is a revealing eight-part documentary series, which documents the story of a murder investigation. Granted extraordinary access to the investigation and the defence, 'Death on the Staircase' shows a murder investigation laid out in compelling detail.
"In 2005, we will build on this success with a season that shows the channel at its very best and promises a wealth of surprises: compelling drama, biting satire, thought-provoking documentary, heart-stirring music, and -- as part of a week-long interactive event -- reveal British TV's greatest decade," Hadlow said.
On the music front, the thriving British jazz scene is looked at in 'Jazz Britannia', a season of music, film and documentary exploring British jazz.
The centrepiece of the season is a new three-part series exploring the evolution of the British jazz scene, with contributions from some of the greatest names in the field.
Other winter highlights include 'Don't Watch That, Watch This', a topical news-based satire from the writers behind 'Bremner, Bird and Fortune'.
'Baghdad or Bust' tells the story of former US marine Ken O'Keefe, who led 60 volunteers in three double-decker buses on a 3,000-mile journey from London to Baghdad before the Iraq war in January 2003.
Winston Churchill's life after the Second World War is looked at in 'Churchill's Forgotten Years', which documents the years after 1945 when Churchill, stinging from electoral defeat and suffering ill health, struggled back to the Prime Ministership and reinvented himself as a man of peace.
The new winter season follows figures last week, which showed BBC Four achieved its highest figures to date and was watched by nearly 4m people across the week.
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