Media: A Moment with Marquis.(Channel Four Television Company Ltd.'s television program Big Brother)

The Channel 4 gods have spoken. And, in doing so, revealed that they have forgotten what makes their channel special.

Sir Michael Bishop, Vanni Treves and Sir Jeremy Isaacs, respectively former chairmen and the founding chief executive of Channel 4, have called for the reality TV hit Big Brother to be scrapped.

Theirs are voices of integrity and experience that demand respect. It is difficult to overstate the towering achievements of Sir Jeremy. He stamped his impeccable credentials on the new channel when it first came to our screens 22 years ago. Under his stewardship, Channel 4 created genuinely different television: programmes of unusual freshness, scheduled into a package that quickly became a distinctive brand.

Big Brother is not to everyone's liking. Indeed, few programmes polarise taste so sharply - televisual Marmite, if you like. But it is undeniably in step with prominent aspects of 21st century popular culture: it's voyeuristic, celebrity-mad, participatory and - this probably grates with the channel's gods most of all - downright vulgar.

Let's be honest, the last Big Brother series went a bit over the top and choosing to screen a booze-fuelled brawl on live TV was undoubtedly a lapse of judgment. Ofcom was probably right to administer a sharp rap.