Chief exec says changing the ecosystem could lead to ‘degradation of standards’ 

Chief executive Alex Mahon has warned that selling Channel 4 could undermine the UK’s whole PSB ecosystem.  

ALEX MAHON

In a virtual press briefing that revealed the broadcaster’s 2021 financial results and unpacked The Next Episode – its counter-proposal to privatisation - Mahon noted that the public service broadcasting in the UK is a “dramatically different operation” compared to other countries. 

”The UK public broadcasting landscape is complicated because there are a lot of players but it’s that complexity that creates competition,” she said. 

“The structure we have with the BBC, C4 and ITV keeps the standards so high here…and one mustn’t forget that it doesn’t take long to pull that apart and for standards to degrade.” 

Pressed on whether she thinks Nadine Dorries fully understands the scope of C4’s remit, Mahon replied that the culture secretary is “very clear” about what she wants to achieve in the broadcasting landscape. 

She added that C4 management needs to be equally clear about the potential impact that privatisation will have on the creative industry: “We need to be crystal clear in our evidence about [those consequences], and we have a responsibility to point that out.”  

Mahon, chief operating officer Jonathan Allan and chief content officer Ian Katz were adamant that C4 will continue to fulfil its remit while its sale is debated in parliament, and that it will continue with a strategy to launch All 4 internationally – something it proposed in The Next Episode – as part of its ambition to grow the company.  

It will also continue with its 4Skills programme, as well as scaling up outside of London, though Mahon said that not all ambitions in The Next Episode would now be realistic to pursue in the face of privatisation, such as a physical skills school to support the development of the creative industry. 

“We did discuss them [our proposals] in detail with government and it’s not the choice they made. I think that’s disappointing and a shame for the UK’s creative industries,” she added. 

The government’s white paper stated that C4’s N&R spend will be enshrined at 35% and that news and current affairs will be protected under a new remit, but it did not provide detail of what those protections will look like.  

Katz acknowledged that the white paper “has very little to say at any level” regarding the protection of the news. 

2021 financial results 

Channel 4 celebrated a record-breaking financial year for 2021, notching up revenues of more than £1bn for the first time, an 18% increase on its pre-pandemic turnover for 2019.  

The broadcaster also recorded a triple-digit surplus for the first time, registering £101m. 

It spent £671m on content, a year-on-year increase of 30%, with almost £500m spent on original content.  

In its digital-first Future4 strategy, C4 set out the ambition for All 4 views to hit 2bn by 2025 and to generate 30% of revenues digitally. It is well on the way to achieving these aims, achieving 1.5bn views on the streaming platform in 2021, and 19% of revenue coming digitally.  

Over 13% of overall C4 viewing came from streaming last year, in comparison to 9.2% last year.  

Elsewhere, 55% of main channel spend was on indies outside of London, while 66% of main channel hours were from outside-of-London indies. 

We Are Lady Parts

Mahon picked out channel stalwarts such as Bake Off and Gogglebox and innovative shows, such as It’s A Sin, Help and  We Are Lady Parts for praise, but she noted that innovative titles can be loss-making.  

“It’s obvious that shows about the menopause, a day of all-black programming and the Paralympics are significantly loss making – that’s what makes it even more of a privilege to make them,” she said.  

“The impact they have on UK society…is inextricably bound up in our not-for-profit model. That model allows for taking risks in a way that profit maximisation never can.”