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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the fundamental differences between Channel 4 and international streaming services, such as Netflix.

The increasing popularity in the UK of international media and streaming groups means that Channel 4, in common with other public service broadcasters, faces growing competition for audiences, programmes, and talent from new, global groups with greater spending power.

Channel 4 and these global streamers are certainly fundamentally different. But no one can deny that the markets within Channel 4 operates have been radically changed by the arrival of such competitors, and Channel 4 will need different tools to succeed in the future.

Audiences are increasingly likely to consume content on non-linear platforms such as video-on-demand services. Whilst overall daily audio-video viewing is increasing, broadcast TV’s share of total viewing fell from 74% in 2017 to 61% in 2020. At the same time, subscription video-on-demand services’ share of total video more than trebled, increasing from 6% in 2017 to 19% in 2020.

Global players such as Netflix have significant financial and operational resources compared to UK public service broadcasters, and they are driving up content costs and viewer acquisition costs across the sector. This is reflected across a number of genres, including high-end dramas. Channel 4’s commissioning spending is dwarfed by Netflix, and small in the context of broadcasters. Netflix invested £9.2 billion in 2020, which included spending £779 million on original UK productions, over twice as much as Channel 4, which spent £329 million on original programming on its main channel in 2020.