Channel 4: Privatisation (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Razzall Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Razzall (LD)]

My Lords, although my time on the Communications Committee had come to an end by the time this report on Channel 4 was produced, I have remained involved in the subsequent deliberations about the channel’s future.

I take this opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord Best, not only for this report but, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, for his work as chair of the committee, which overlapped with my membership of it. This is also a moment when I would like to commemorate the work of my friend Lord Hart, who sadly passed away in the summer. I think it was Lord Hart who came up with the brilliant title for one of the committee’s reports on the BBC, Reith not Revolution.

For more than 90 years, the concept of public service broadcasting has been at the heart of the British broadcasting model. Public service broadcasters have been tasked with offering their audiences the best of everything—programmes whose goal has been collective public benefit in the broadest sense, rather than simply courting popularity or revenue. Channel 4 has epitomised this approach with its policy of targeting younger viewers and its specific concentration on, for example, disabilities—hence coverage of the Paralympics, with its concentration on the employment of people with disabilities—and its landmark coverage of Gay Pride on the 60th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act 1957.

As an aside, although Channel 4 has, as I said, been ground-breaking with its focus on disability issues, and in the appointment of the first female chief executive of a major channel, it is a shame that its copybook was somewhat blotted over ethnic diversity. This is arguably the fault of the Government, who apparently vetoed a well-qualified minority ethnic woman as a non-executive director, causing, as people will remember, uproar in the BAME community. The executive team at Channel 4 is all white.

As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, when this report was published, the threat of privatisation was in the air. The report is unequivocal: do not privatise. The committee clearly felt that privatisation would have put at risk the very remit of Channel 4, which is a vital part of the creative economy, providing invaluable support for smaller independent production companies and acting as a platform for exciting new programming. The major financial issue with privatisation is that to generate a significant private investment in Channel 4 would be incompatible in value with retaining the remit which makes Channel 4 so special. As shown in evidence given to the committee, with the inevitable focus on profit rather than the channel’s remit, privatisation would have had a detrimental effect on Channel 4’s coverage of news and current affairs, diversity and the plurality of public service broadcasting in general. For example, to privatise Channel 4 would be likely to imperil the great success story that has been referred to, including the pioneering coverage of the Paralympics. On these Benches, we are delighted that the Government have agreed with this report and shelved the idea of privatisation. This is clearly an opportunity for the Government to confirm that the question of privatisation is permanently off the agenda and will not be revisited.

As the noble Lord, Lord Best, has indicated, there are new challenges now faced by Channel 4, in particular the idea announced by Karen Bradley at the end of March—and I think included in the Conservative Party election manifesto—that Channel 4 should be moved out of London. In looking at this suggestion, it must be remembered that Channel 4 makes no programmes of its own, so is a publisher not a programme maker, and employs only 860 people in its London office.

There are two major arguments against a full removal of Channel 4 from London. First, as one noble Lord said, the UK’s advertising industry is primarily based in London, so the 250 or so staff involved in this area would have to remain in London to successfully sell their advertising. Secondly, and this is a point not often recognised, a relocation outside London would be damaging to a number of small regional independent production companies who sell their programmes to Channel 4. A number of these companies are pitching programmes with relatively small budgets and currently can make only one journey to London to sell their product, allowing them to tour all broadcasters in a day. A relocation could be expensive and disruptive to these companies, costing significant extra time and money.

However, that is not the end of the story. At the moment, Channel 4 is reviewing its options, which will obviously mean waiting until the new chief executive is in post at the end of the year. But there are a number of actions that Channel 4 could take to improve its involvement with the nations and regions. First, there is absolutely no reason why the present regional quota of 35% of programme spend should not be increased to 50% or more. Secondly, there is no reason why regional commissioning editors cannot be established outside London, mirroring production hubs such as Manchester. Finally, Channel 4 should seriously consider the suggestion made by PACT that All 4 and the technology team should relocate to, say, Birmingham. This would involve around 200 jobs, and dovetail with the move of half of BBC3’s team to the city and with Birmingham’s role as a trading academy and centre for BBC journalism.

In conclusion, I welcome the decision to kill privatisation. Winning the title of Channel of the Year at the Broadcast Awards in both 2016 and 2017 and the top prize at the 2017 Digital Cinema Media awards is a true testament to the success of this exceptional broadcaster.