The closure of FilmFour will, of course, be a bad thing. It will be a bad thing for the people who lose their jobs, it will be a bad thing for the nebulous construct we refer to as "the British film industry", and it may well prove to be a straightforwardly bad business decision on the part of Channel 4.

The £5m loss for last year needs to be put into perspective: you could make Trainspotting and The Full Monty for that amount and get 30 times your money back. And, as the veteran Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein told the Independent on Sunday last week, a significant source of income for a movie studio is its back catalogue. "Stay the course," said Weinstein, "and you will win."

But if you ask whether it is bad for us, the cinema-going public, the answer is probably no. The "British film industry" is not going to disappear overnight. Last year's biggest British movie was not funded by FilmFour, or BBC films, the other big source of local money. Bridget Jones's Diary was written, directed and produced by Britons, was shot here and, with one glaring exception, had an all-British cast. The money may not have come from W1, but that did not make the jokes any less funny.

Working Title, the production company that made Four Weddings and a Funeral, has never been shy about seeking new suitors to fund a project, and there is no reason to suppose that it will throw in the towel now that FilmFour has ripped up its dance card. European and American studios such as Miramax are only too happy to fund low-budget, high-talent, high-return British projects such as last year's Iris. And, unlike Channel 4, they are prepared to take the long view, and ride out a few disappointing projects while they wait for the next Full Monty.

FilmFour's disappearance will not mean much to the man in the multiplex. Channel 4's move into film production was a product of its time; few British films were being made, and even fewer were making money. The station started making quality drama in a long format, using some trusted TV talent, with the intention of using it in its own programming and - who knows? - maybe sending a few prints out to cinemas.

What happened next is history, and it is probably true that the British film industry would not be what it is today if so many actors, directors and producers had not made their names in those films of the early 90s. But now that our team can swim, it does not matter a great deal what happens to the armbands.

That Channel 4's early films were successful at the box office was not accidental, but it would not have mattered greatly if they were not. Particularly since the sums that had been ploughed into them would barely pay for a couple of episodes of The Simpsons at today's prices. But then FilmFour started to behave like a Hollywood studio. Spending more on productions to secure higher profile casts was all well and good, but the company started to forget that what it did best was essentially British: Charlotte Gray could have been made by any of the big studios, and would have stunk just as much if it had been.

Perhaps the most heartening piece of news, then, is the idea that Channel 4 is to "reabsorb" its film-making operations into the bosom of the mother country. We can expect productions with smaller budgets, keeping a closer eye on broadcast and home markets rather than trying to take on the big boys. And, with a bit of luck, we can hope for a return to the creativity and daring of those early days.