Clock ticking as Ofcom begins hunt for next Channel 4 chair

The search for a new Channel 4 chair is to kick off imminently, Broadcast can reveal, with the timing tight ahead of Charles Gurassa’s departure in late January. 

Ofcom is understood to be confident that it will find a suitable replacement before Gurassa’s six-year term ends on 28 January, though it could ask him extend his tenure, or ask deputy chair Chris Holmes to step in temporarily, if it does not hit the deadline.   

Sky News reported in August that the process was due to commence ‘within weeks’ but it appears to have been delayed. The search will be overseen by Ofcom interim chair Maggie Carver, alongside at least two independent panellists. 

Their decision will ultimately require sign-off from culture secretary Nadine Dorries, which may not prove straightforward.  

Earlier this year former culture secretary Oliver Dowden blocked recommendations from Ofcom and C4 to re-appoint Uzma Hasan and Fru Hazlitt as non-exec directors.  

That decision prompted a hunt for two replacements with experience of steering a business through a ‘significant corporate transaction’. The deadline for applicants closing in mid-August, but no new non-execs have been named yet.  

It is not clear what impact the proposed privatisation of C4 will have on the field of would-be chairs.  

The DCMS’s response to the consultation on the broadcaster’s future has not yet been published. Reports earlier this week suggested that it may not emerge until the new year. 

Last month culture minister Julia Lopez told the Lords select committee that the department is keen to settle the matter in the “not too distant future”.  

“We do not want to drag this out, because we appreciate that having this question hanging over Channel 4 is unhelpful to the people working within Channel 4,” she added. 

Gurassa has been a fierce opponent to privatisation, writing to DCMS in July to warn of the “irreversible damage” caused by a sale. 

“The lack of any detailed analysis, evidence or impact assessment leaves us as a board deeply concerned given our statutory responsibility to deliver Channel 4’s remit,” he said at the time.