A handy guide to the new BBC channels

As well as the channels that people watch and listen to, the BBC now has the following supernumerary offerings, a wealth of choice for busy people with no time to spare. You may have noticed the ersatz advertising campaign for the following new channels.

Television

BBC3 - Things that should be on ITV, mostly about how much money pop stars earn.

BBC4 - Things that should be on BBC2, but they think we're too stupid to appreciate.

CBBC - Things that should be on BBC1 in the afternoon, instead of whining Australian soaps.

CBeebies - Things that should be on BBC1 in the morning, instead of whining British soaps.

BBC News24 - Half an hour of news, repeated forty-eight times

BBC Parliament - Closed Circuit TV from an institute for the clinically pompous

Radio

Five Live - Things that should be on Radio 2

Sports Xtra - Things that shouldn't be on at all

6 Music - Things that should be on BBC Radio 1

BBC 7 - Old things that should never have been on in the first place

Asian Network - Auntie talking very slowly and distinctly about things that should be on the BBC World Service

GLR / Local Radio - The broadcasting equivalent of make-work

The BBC is now run by superannuated dregs of the failed yuppie era. Because they are not really allowed to advertise, their simulations of commercial advertising always reek faintly of self-abuse. They produce laddish adverts suggesting that we cut out important things in life - dressing, civility, childcare - in order to make time for their luxuriant exercises in redundancy. Of course we understand that they are only joking, because it has been reported that many hours of the new channels' output go without any viewers or listeners at all.

Malachy Dunhill