Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of privatising Channel 4 on the independent television sector in (a) Alyn and Deeside constituency and (b) the UK.

The Government consulted extensively on the future of Channel 4, and the views and evidence gathered from a wide range of stakeholders across the UK has informed the government’s assessment of any potential impact of a change of ownership. The Government published its sale impact analysis on 28 April.

Channel 4 has done an excellent job in supporting the UK production sector and thereby delivering on one of its founding purposes. Forty years on, independent production in the UK is now booming, with revenues having grown from £500 million in 1995 to £3 billion in 2019. Companies are increasingly less reliant on Channel 4 for commissions - only 7 per cent of the UK’s independent production sector revenues come from Channel 4 commissions.

Channel 4 still has an important part to play in supporting the sector and our wider creative economy. Channel 4 will still be required to commission a minimum volume of programming from independent producers, in line with the quotas placed on other PSBs, and Channel 4’s existing obligations in terms of regional production outside of London and England will also be maintained.

Channel 4 has excellent relationships with independent producers right across the UK and there is no reason this should change. The Government expects a new owner to want to build on and develop those relationships.

The Government believes that in the long run the UK production ecosystem will benefit from a more sustainable Channel 4. A change of ownership that improves Channel 4’s access to capital could increase spending on production. For example, Channel 5’s overall content budget increased following its acquisition by Viacom in 2014, with first-run spending up by an average of 7% per year between 2014 and 2018.