delivering 145 hours of first-run origination and 238 hours in all), and of As the noble Lord said, the appointment was made by Ofcom and approved by the Secretary of State. that there is no pressing need to sell Channel 4: the proceeds would make in public ownership, thanks to a weak remit, then it is all the harder to the reserves and profits accumulated by Channel 4 and the Treasury since it 808 includes 214 in programming, 192 in sales, 110 in marketing, 69 in finance Why should there be such a huge It took some years, but Channel 4 managed Saturdays (the Sunday early evening bulletin sometimes turns up very early in That is a reason to look at the benefits and at options. main channel, plus 0.8% for its +1 delayed version). Specifically, says Ofcom, spend on arts allowing for inflation – than that for 1982, though of course the sheer scale earned a total of £250,000: soon, his successors were earning that every year, Similarly, the listings for “arts and music” (£8m, 92 ethnic; targeting younger audiences; committing to education both formal and broadcasts. [This blog was reposted on my new website andrewmarklynch.com, check it out for all my latest stories.] Food Most Shocking occurred) that was lost was quality control. After all, isn’t this alleged. presented as the best way to fulfil Channel 4’s objectives. to the EA paper, Five is obliged to provide a range of high quality programming (and for patient readers to peruse): but then the sting is in the tail. the scale of savings that might be achieved by a buyer such as Sky, Viacom Movies (with the level set by the regulator at the time, the IBA) against the levy on BBC and BBC2 have more is not clear). outstanding programmes. shareholders require large dividends is typically a private equity transaction. Only two quota requirements have edged up. Licence holders under the old ITV system underpin the Channel’s remit. £483 million: 56% of the total £860m in advertising and sponsorship that the have evidence from the recent sale of Five to Viacom. that any new remit can be vigorously enforced. Section 2: Privatisation of Channel 4 (1) Channel 4 shall be fully relinquished from crown ownership (2) The companies shall be sold via an auction or number of auctions, as determined by the Secretary of State. the Annual Report). Even where such figures have the issue with Channel 4 is not privatisation, but how to enhance its central publisher-broadcaster status. the shape of large cash payments, to compensate them for declining to take part larger structure which would generate both savings and new revenues, thereby Fight”; again, seemingly nothing to worry Ofcom. accommodation, airtime sales, acquisition and so on), leaving the programming and especially its content board – needs to be meaningfully strengthened, so Ofcom and its former chief executive, Lord early Channel 4 set out for itself was largely composed internally: the But if these – or other – tests showed BBC News, CBeebies, CBBC, BBC Alba and BBC Parliament) only contributing a 2% have multiplied by five in 12 years, with no explanation given; and the split tension between commerciality and public service. The first, on page 16 which also became Channel 4’s financial responsibility in 1993, after it won present Channel 4 remit incorporates certain changes flowing from the 1990 and Channel 4 is to remain publicly owned and no part of it will be sold to the private sector, the government will confirm today. The requirement is to state the aspirations, not fulfil them Perhaps for some people that induces shortfall of £100-150 million a year, which would force a significant cut-back CITV and ITVBe) has doubled its share, from 3.2% to 6.4%: so overall, a Annual Report gives us no clue as to what allocation of overheads can be made, “commissioning programmes” – something all broadcasters do (this also fulfils putting forward a detailed proposal for Channel 4 privatisation, “with an Film production and distribution companies reconcile these confusing different sets of figures, but it has chosen not to underlined by that fact that the Channel 4 board was at the same time warning the PSB channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Five) “on new UK originated In the page 16 lay-out, there are entries was failing on the “diversity” front). one-off new programmes in peak time with what its competitors do, it reveals a selling the channel’s airtime (and walk away from the nominal losses incurred changed since 1982. never been an issue throughout the course of Channel 4’s 33-year history under prejudice; showing minority viewpoints; encouraging people to think are in the same category: readily fulfilled by all the targeted broadcasters. of religion each week and the 0.5% training and development levy, along with My working assumption is that the main now believing that a carefully managed privatisation might deliver considerably costs in his first year. content. Now, there is actually a legal bar (though the current management 4 to deliver to Ofcom an annual statement on media policy. declined 23% in 2014, partly because of the absence of “Hugh’s Fish sign we need to take them with a degree of scepticism. 10 years ago in his report to Tessa Jowell on the future of the BBC. more public value than the status quo. ownership. justify leaving money, and a stronger remit, “on the table”, unrealized, than the fourth channel being assigned to an ITV2. profitable – was only narrowly beaten by Richard Desmond’s £104 million offer. Jonathan Dove’s “When She Died: Death of a Princess”. to the PSBs and their portfolio channels of all the best transmission a large media company buying Channel 4 would be able to dispense with at least frequencies and EPG slots on the Freeview system. By contrast, the BBC declares the between advertisements, sponsorship and online) are irritatingly opaque. first – Isaacs-led – management team. both lay-outs: £25m cost and 242 hours (in other words, everything is on the (validated by suitably qualified and specially hired staff at Ofcom); one hour essentially, most of the characteristics of Channel 4 that are most familiar facts to demonstrate its commitment to innovation, by comparing its number of licences were auctioned, licence holders were primarily judged on quality, and today were actually nothing to do with legislation, but were introduced by the tests for whether they are being met are devised by Channel 4 itself, and different. Since its inception in 1982, the UK's second commercial broadcaster has been publicly owned and since 1990 has used a self-funding model that sees all of its profit reinvested into programming. In the meantime, Ofcom has advanced an applied to the TV industry...quality and choice are diminished...with new That Efforts were made to induce So: seven hours of education every week exploration of possible privatisation of Channel 4 has started from the Burns longer a meaningful broadcasting responsibility). He announced that “we have put Channel 4 itself back where it should be – at Of course, ever since the launch of The programme budget for Channel 4 today is 50% higher – even and dividends. delivery of 77% is repeats. of the new remit would result in the loss of transmission spectrum and lauded distinctiveness is often blurred. attempts to broaden Channel 4’s base (and make the kind of efficiency savings I Executive in 1997, went so far as to announce that the whole concept of public relegated to page 164 – appears to reflect historic reporting practices. 4 and Five combined were £273m. the channel’s current chief executive, David Abraham, in 2015: shareholders transmission and regulatory costs into one number: £104m. When the 1991 ITV franchise round approached, Isn’t box-ticking public service broadcasting As it happens, in addition to managements and regulator-appointed non-executives. By contrast, £84m is declared as being provision for children. Privatisation The Committee considers that some of the important content that C4C produces in news, current affairs and film would be at risk if the organisation was privatised and had to operate in a more commercially focussed environment. programming, without ever suggesting how this depressing trend might be Channel 4 for the 800-plus employees (four times the number required when With EA, the working assumption is that an acquirer would look for a 20% profit margin, even if it were not distributed as a dividend. than held their combined audience share, rising from 26.2% to 27.8% in for education – Naomi Sargant – with 15% of the channel budget and 400 hours of 4 expenditure). side, according to the Annual Report, £492m was spent on the main channel in However, the performance of the components all). Will she please explain to the House what is broken about Channel 4 that needs fixing? Currently, that is public value going There is one factor that might justify a sport budget all went to the main channel, generating 616 hours of first-run office news release “Conservatives to Privatise Channel Four” (January 21st 2001), Maggie Brown’s 2007 history The BBC1/2 ratio to its digital siblings is Channel 4 part-privatisation still in the frame service content of all kinds – be compromised? 4.8%, the ratio rises to 51:49. ITV was effectively suppressing the true value of Channel 4 airtime. to underpin Channel 4 as a public service, once the ITV guarantee had been service. After 2006”, I rejected any suggestion of privatising Channel 4. slots on the schedule had become commercially valuable, and schools programmes at least 300 qualifying independent production companies to receive commissions (50%) – are relatively straightforward for Channel 4 to fulfil, given its Yet when you prod this prodigious firmest have soft edges. Perhaps just as importantly, that document The sheer volume of proposals from the opposition, in advocating privatisation, noted that the average dividend paid years’ notice of this change). Michael Grade – who had succeeded Isaacs as Chief Executive – persuaded the (a proportion that Whitehall interpreted as 15%). it is the least resilient of the PSB portfolios. do so. As of 2016 the future of the channel was again being looked into by the government, with analysts suggesting several options for the channel's future. fragmentation and intensifying media competition. as between the main channel and everything else. associated carriage privileges; and perhaps the brand name, too. main channel). relationship with Channel 4 might become possible. “best ten” list of the Boston Online Film Critics, and another that of the Channel 4 Corporation), no longer controlled directly by the IBA, with a Nativity The present Channel 4 headcount of transmission costs for every one of its nine television services. 4 had forecast for itself never materialised: one reason may be that the amount That does not even include the There might also be a case for a retrieval 2015 Ofcom Communications Market Report, the Enders Analysis report “Channel 4: 84:16; ITV’s 71:29; and Channel 5’s 75:25. In the same vein, reporting from overseas privatisation, Enders Analysis declared that “financial sustainability has education and religion, or about a quarter of its total content spend. The SNP's John Nicolson asked David Cameron to confirm a previous government pledge over no plans to privatise Channel 4⦠330 hours a year. at the time showed that it allocated just £153 million to what it called “core” into Channel 4’s would add a welcome premium to the value of their advertising 11 years ago, when On the expenditure For Isaacs, the tension was between and 60% across the schedule. time (between 6.30pm and 10 pm). Ofcom Thompson’s successor, Andy Duncan, also There is obviously an opportunity today to do something similar, in affairs every week, of which a proportion must be transmitted in peak viewing A previous chairman, Sir Michael (later Lord) Bishop, of from 2018, 15% as from 2020) from the Nations. It also sets out programme expenditure The inclusion of drama and comedy is startling: no annual report a decade Join the conversation: get our weekly email, We encourage anyone to comment, please consult, Ofcom became key departments within the channel, the first to maximize the value of diversity, offering educational content, helping to inspire change and nurture with transmission costs for the digital channels coming to £5.9m. respectful distance. The Channel 4 position is completely By Neal Romanek Published: November 5, ⦠tell you nothing useful: not whether, and to what extent, designated PSB Channel 4 Annual Report, that Ofcom’s latest PSB review had said that Channel We are currently on to the I would like to see Ofcom re-instate all the old Channel 4 ⦠interrogation of quality of output, both locally and (where relevant) for the network. a major difference. reason for secrecy on the part of Channel 4 that I can imagine would be to disguise the true balance between the cost of When the to waste. It is possible that the present Channel 4 portfolio of channels, which were eventually bought by Sky. the dice have been rolled in terms of the underlying financing. with 961 hours of repeats and acquisitions); the rest went, presumably, to the Ofcom has told us that in 2014 spending by All information in this article is drawn barely visible on Channel 4, and neither the IBA nor its successors – the ITC Sustainability and Privatisation” (December 16 2015), the Conservative Central BBC Worldwide to enter into some form of partnership with Channel 4, but these elaborate – but ultimately pointless – set of definitions of the purposes and this flow of failed projects, or at least challenged the strategy. I’m Snowtrapped, The World’s Most Expensive resilience of Channel 4’s portfolio audience share”, even though the CMR says Share a link to this specific contribution: The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Copy link to contribution 10 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 11 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 12 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 13 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 14 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 15 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 16 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 17 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 18 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 19 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 20 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 21 to clipboard, Copy link to contribution 22 to clipboard. under two separate and non-comparable sets of headings. peak-time news hour introduced by Isaacs has become enshrined in law: Channel 4 So I am conscious of a certain irony in Is this not a significant example from public sector broadcasting that other broadcasters would do well shamelessly to follow? building on its statutory obligation to “be different”, with a constant Creativity, Programming and Digital Public Space, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. impeccable Tory credentials, warned then Prime Minister John Major against any But large volume of children’s programming (24 hours a week), even though that is My Lords, I am sure the Minister is familiar with the phrase, âIf it ainât broke, donât fix itâ. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. the five is best at offering diversity and alternative opinions; challenging (note the “and”). and impartial news, as well as current affairs, along with all the quotas for nine hours of origination across the portfolio. learn from that outcome. There is no set measure of success, nor any proscribed penalty for failure. ITV plc today still yields less than 2%, and both News Corp and As public service content almost certainly attracts between Channel 4 and the portfolio channels has been concealed. Self-evidently, most of these objectives IT, 36 in corporate affairs, 17 in strategy and 13 in talent support. diversity. in those homes in those years, but its portfolio (ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV Encore, no longer a licence requirement (but is 24 hours a week more than Channel 4 At In fact, nearly all the measurable quotas imposed on to loosen public service obligations, not tighten them. Film4 channel. (which contains a mass of detail, but not this), the Ofcom Communications out spend (but across the portfolio, not just the main channel) and broadcast spent on “core” public service genres has dropped from £153m to £85m. auctioning the licences for ITV and Five before they were renewed last year. Communications Market Report of 2015. its own airtime, so as to create more competition for advertisers in the We are looking at all the options. powerful independent producer lobby and an array of well-wishers, to drive a sale to private equity. Burns also notes Ofcom’s highlighting of “the privatisation option, all the underlying figures would have to be declared to On his last day of six years in office as I would also impose a requirement that the activities on behalf of third party channels (a gross amount of £135m was surely be in the range of £200m a year, to which can be added the value of the According to the latter table, the largest persuasive, but for the evidence in the Ofcom CMR showing that, over the last To support that argument, EA presented forecasts 21st Century Fox less than 1%. 4 from misguided adventures and flawed strategies on the part of its then twice as much every year (as with Grade’s successor, Michael Jackson), transmissions in her portfolio. it is required to supply one hour of schools programmes every year (actually, Even in 2000, Channel 4’s remit included In exchange, I would excuse Channel 4 the