General Election 2015: 'But I want to watch Charmed!' Teenagers moan at E4 shutdown

No the election is not as exciting as Game of Thrones say annoyed E4 viewers

Darren stars in E4's election day shutdown campaign (Channel 4)

Disgruntled teenagers and twentysomethings have taken to Twitter today to air their disgruntlement at the withdrawal of access to Charmed and the Big Bang Theory.

Digital channel E4 was turned off this morning at 7am and will only return to its usual service tonight at 7pm in a bid to get 18 to 34-year-olds off the sofa and into the polling stations.

But while Channel 4, which owns the digital subsidiary, has been praised for encouraging young people to get engaged in politics rather than to watch endless repeats of American comedies, viewers have expressed dismay at their heavy-handed tactics.

Channel 4 has received 8 official complaints and social media is awash with would-be viewers lamenting the fact that their favourite shows have been replaced with a bloke called Darren, aka the man in the “E4 control room”, sitting lazily while the computer beside him says a firm “No”.

It does, however, make some concessions for E4’s younger viewers, adding: “If you’re too young to vote, sorry this must be really annoying…”

E4 is the number one digital channel for 16- 34 year olds attracting a 5.20% share of the young demographic so far this year and outperforming BBC2 and Channel 5.

Announcing the plan last month Dan Brooke, Channel 4’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, said: “Less than half of under-25s voted at the last election so we’ve engaged the most powerful weapon that we have at our disposal to try and boost that number – switching off their favourite TV channel for the day!”

Ofcom has not received a single complaint about the E4 shutdown, however, and Channel 4 will resume normal service at 7pm with an episode of Hollyoaks three hours before the polls close.