History man Starkey in 'golden handcuffs' deal

Channel 4 is poised to sign an exclusive "golden handcuffs" deal with the historian and presenter David Starkey to stop him being poached by rival broadcasters.

Dr Starkey, once called the rudest man in Britain, has fronted some of Channel 4's most successful factual programmes, helping to rescue history from television's graveyard slots and make it a genre attracting higher ratings than Friends and Brookside.

The terms of the multimillion-pound deal between Granada, which produces the programmes, and Channel 4 are still being discussed but the deal will see the academic attempt to recreate the spectacular success of Elizabeth and The Six Wives of Henry VIII, which attracted more than four million viewers.

Under the deal, Dr Starkey, who has been described as having "all the cosy TV charm of a hyena" and was called "the rudest man in Britain" by the Daily Mail, will front 25 hours of history programmes over four years.

Since the surprise success of his four-part series on Elizabeth I, history has enjoyed a surge in popularity, becoming the most popular subject among documentary-makers.

On BBC 2, Simon Schama's History of Britain in 2000 was one of the channel's biggest successes, commanding enormous ratings, while the launch of the channel's series on the Civil War was accompanied by an unprecedented level of hype.

Both Channel 4 and BBC2 have attempted to capitalise on the public's enthusiasm for all things historical by pledging to increase history production by around a third.

Andy Harries, controller of comedy and drama at Granada, told last year's Montreux television festival: "History is the new gardening," and told viewers to expect even more history programmes.

Yesterday the terms of Dr Starkey's new contract were being hammered out by Jim Allen, Granada's controller of factual programmes, and Janice Hadlow, Channel 4's head of history. A spokesman for Channel 4 said that the subjects of his new programmes could not be confirmed until the contract was signed.

The deal is a mark of the value Dr Starkey commands as a proven success as a historical presenter. However, some commentators have criticised the new-style documentaries as being too dependent on the personality of presenters such as Dr Starkey and Professor Schama.

Tristram Hunt, the young academic nicknamed "the naked historian" for his BBC2 series on the English Civil War, even entered the fray with a much-publicised spat with Dr Starkey. Dr Hunt, 27, described Dr Starkey's programmes as the work of a "gossip columnist", arguing "there is far more to history than who shagged whom".

Dr Starkey said Dr Hunt had a "chip on his shoulder" and accused the BBC of trading on his rival's youthful good looks. The BBC hopes that Dr Hunt will draw a younger audience.

Dr Gillian Evans, a Cambridge historian, said the personality cult of historians could impede the viewers' understanding of the story being told. "The question is whether TV documentaries are providing entertainment or helping people to get inside the mind of an earlier age. There is a tendency to front such things with 'the glamorous historian' or 'the dotty but endearing academic' so that a personality cult gets between the viewer and the story."