the first casualty in war ................

[SydneyRover]

''Ministers will push to privatise Channel 4 in TV shake-up
End of an era looms for British broadcasting as government pushes ahead with plans to sell the channel''

Don't like being held to account, sell it off to your fan club

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/23/ministers-will-push-to-privatise-channel-4-in-tv-shake-up

[DRCraig]

Channel 4 is showing loads of Sport these days. Especially the Rugby union. Love it. Put it all on there. So sky, bt and premier can be zapped off. For years the only thing I watched on 4 was Brookside.

[River Don]

Channel 4 has a public service remit to be innovative and creative, to champion diversity and to give a stage for normally unheard voices.

I can't see any private sector being able to afford to continue to do this.

What's more Channel 4 has just undertaken to locate regional centres, such as the new offices in Leeds. I can't see a private business wanting to maintain such a dispersed regional footprint either.

All in all, this proposal is bad news for creative jobs outside of London and bad news for the viewer.

The irony being Channel 4 was set up originally under a tory government. Such a shame.

[SydneyRover]

I wonder why thatcher set it up as right wing governments always want to control the news, it's the same in Oz as they have Consistently defunded the national broadcaster and Murdoch wants it sold off altogether.

[SydneyRover]

Here's an explainer

https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2013/apr/12/margaret-thatcher-television-press

[River Don]

I wonder why thatcher set it up as right wing governments always want to control the news, it's the same in Oz as they have Consistently defunded the national broadcaster and Murdoch wants it sold off altogether.

It was probably seen as an acceptable way of breaking the BBC monopoly on public sector broadcasting. Channel 4 also doesn't make its own programmes, it invests in independant production companies. I imagine the government of the day saw it as a way of supporting that sector.

[SydneyRover]

''Thatcher waged a ceaseless campaign against the BBC, over its coverage of politics generally and in particular the Falklands war, Northern Ireland, the reporting of the US bombing of Libya, alleged leftwing bias, and its entitlement to the licence fee''

''The resulting 1980 Broadcasting Act created Channel 4 and Welsh language broadcaster S4C as publisher broadcasters with the majority of programming supplied by independent producers, positioned as plucky small businesses. This kick started profound change: today's independent production sector turns over more than £2bn a year and is a global force. For the BBC and ITV it meant discovering the real cost of individual programmes, which had not previously been an issue''

As you say RD, unfortunately that's all at risk now as the UE are pushing back against the amount of UK produced work shown there.