Enders: Channel 4 sale would have benefits

The proposed privatisation of Channel 4 could deliver a number of significant benefits, according to leading analyst Claire Enders.

Appearing in front of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee inquiry earlier this week, Enders said she disagrees with the government’s view that C4 is unsustainable, but nonetheless considers that a change in ownership could have its merits.

“Privatisation gives C4 access to an altogether different kind of future – one of much greater ambition,” she said. “It is an opportunity for C4 to become a completely different kind of business - to greatly reduce its dependency on advertising, to be able to develop much more significant partnerships in the world, to have access to globally-relevant technology and partnerships…and secure access to global capital markets.”

She added that the acquisitions of Channel 5 by ViacomCBS and Sky by Comcast has “galvanised” investment.

“There is an opportunity for C4 to pass from the relatively troublesome stewardship of the government into a situation where it’s going to be able to regain its full editorial independence, which has greatly diminished,” she said.

She highlighted former culture secretary John Whittingdale’s commitment to strengthening C4’s remit as a crucial part of a sale process and said that she has knowledge that “at least two of the [potential] buyers” are happy to accept specific requirements, with a general buy-in to retaining its identity.

“All of the [would-be] buyers are acting in extraordinarily good faith,” she said. “Everybody understands where the government wants to go with this – everybody wants C4 and its mission to be safe.”

A strengthened remit for C4 could include increasing its out-of-London spending commitments and its support for smaller production companies. “There is no buyer that is going to welch on those on those requirements,” she added.

“The nebulousness of public service media here is so great that foreign owners will throw resources at it. Far from taking a penny from companies in Scotland, a buyer is going to double down and say to C4: ‘Here’s a billion pounds to buy every company you want to buy from here to LA.”

Enders said that such an outcome would offset concerns over unshackling C4 from its anachronistic publisher-broadcaster model.

“I look around the planet and don’t see another commercial broadcaster that’s not allowed to own its IP [and is] isn’t vertically integrated,” she said. “If C4 management was given a huge amount more [money], then they would do more. They would not forget about the small people north of Leeds who need looking after – there would be no bar to British talent.”