Campaigners including media unions have welcomed the announcement by the culture secretary, Michelle Donelan, that the government has scrapped plans to privatise Channel 4. Instead, it proposes to introduce measures to allow for Channel 4’s “long-term sustainability” and help it “better compete in the age of streaming giants”.
Government scraps plans to sell Channel 4
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said the government will legislate through the forthcoming media bill to relax the restriction on Channel 4, so it is more able to produce its own content rather than having to outsource everything to external production companies. This will help “put it on a more stable financial footing by growing its commercial income”.
According to reports, the bill will also contain a statutory obligation for Channel 4’s board to focus on the “long-term financial sustainability” of the channel.
The decision was welcomed by Channel 4, whose chief executive Alex Mahon said: “The principle of public ownership for Channel 4 is now set for the foreseeable future, a decision which allows us to be even more of a power in the digital world.”
Privatising Channel 4 was always controversial
From the very beginning, proposals to privatise the station attracted widespread opposition from the British media industry, the broadcaster’s current management, media unions, the public and a large number of Conservative MPs. A formal consultation on whether to privatise Channel 4, launched in 2021, attracted more than 60,000 submissions, with independent television production companies putting up particularly fierce opposition.
The National Union of Journalists had called the proposed sell-off “bad for journalism and bad for the United Kingdom”. The media union welcomed initial reports of the change of plan, saying: “Privatisation of Channel 4 threatens quality journalism, jobs and creativity. Government should never have proposed the sell-off.”
In May 2022 it was reported that Channel 4 proposed to create around 250 jobs in Leeds, and there were plans in the pipeline to push that number even higher in subsequent years. With new hubs also springing up in Glasgow and Bristol, Channel 4 employs more than 400 members of staff outside London and that number was set to increase further still. Channel 4 bosses believed that many of these jobs would have been threatened by privatisation.
The Channel was created in 1982 by the Conservative government of Baroness Thatcher and is entirely funded by advertising, with no public funding.
