So, farewell then, Legal TV. Just shy of two years after it announced its launch in January 2006, Legal TV, the Aston-based broadcaster, has announced it is shutting up shop. Prefigured in Obiter a month ago when Legal TV announced it was 'restructuring' and that most lawyer-based programmes would be axed, the demise comes as less of a surprise than perhaps it should.


'Attempts to make [the] public love lawyers ends in disaster', read the company's statement this week, explaining that it had required the public to tune in to its legal reality entertainment shows featuring real-life solicitors to achieve commercial success. 'This saw the launch of the "Love Lawyers" season which ended in disaster with a Big Brother-style shoot, "Lawyers save the World", being scrapped... the public just don't want to watch lawyers on the telly.' (You couldn't make some of this stuff up, honest - and let's face it, some of us could have told them that this would be a difficult sell from the off.)



The station's statement quoted Jonathan Munro, a partner at Balfor Legal, saying: 'I cannot understand why the public did not take to lawyers. We fulfil an important role in society and the TV world will be a duller place without Legal TV.' One of the other partners at Balfor Legal, by the way, is Davy Bal, the founder of Legal TV.



But happily, 'due to the insatiable demand from the public for advice, Legal TV will continue online'. In the meantime, they've flogged the channel's position on the digital platform to a new reality TV channel. As if we need another one.