Lesley Riddoch: The Tories selling off Channel 4? It's a sin

Could this be another act of distraction by a master of the art facing serious challenges on every other front – mixed with a large dollop of score-settling? If so, the move could backfire spectacularly.

The sell-off will not raise much cash – the equivalent of four days’ national debt interest, according to Tory MP Julian Knight – nor save existing public expenditure since C4 is not state subsidised but runs on advertising revenues. As the privatisation takes up precious parliamentary time in the years ahead, might a scunnered public not wonder why time and political energy is being wasted on this pointless payback exercise and not focused on the cost-of-living crisis? Even the fiercest critic of Channel Four might conclude this is not the time to be fiddling about with anything else.

The downsides of flogging a robust, innovative broadcaster to the private sector will also become increasingly obvious. Could a channel owned by the Discovery Channel (part owner of the near-universally panned GB News) possibly deliver a better news service than the present, publicly owned Channel 4?

Besides, why fix a broadcaster that ain’t broke? Channel Four weathered the pandemic pretty well, with revenues falling just five per cent in 2020 and rising to an expected £1 billion for the first time ever last year – almost all the profits were ploughed back into programme-making, not divvied out to shareholders.

English Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden claims a privatised channel could make more money by selling programmes around the world, something it’s currently barred from doing. But that’s because independent producers retain international rights so in the Channel Four model, they prosper through worldwide sales not the broadcaster. If that’s changed, independent companies will suffer. And as for levelling up, Channel Four has just shifted much of its operation to Leeds, Bristol and Glasgow.

As motives go, political revenge looks a whole lot more likely than tender concern for Channel Four’s ability to fight off competition from streaming services.

C4’s former news chief Dorothy Byrne publicly called Boris Johnson a liar during a speech at the Edinburgh television festival in 2019 and during the subsequent general election, the absent Tory leader was replaced with a melting ice sculpture, sparking an 18-month C4 News boycott by UK Government ministers which ended in 2021 with a robust interview between Boris Johnson and C4 News’ political editor Gary Gibbons. In hindsight that was a clever move to muddy the water and conceal the Conservatives’ malign intent.

But challenge is always important in a democracy and Channel Four was established with a mission to provoke and innovate. Its news programme can hardly be blamed for fulfilling its brief 100 per cent, especially when tactful conformity has become the general rule elsewhere.

Back in 1982 when C4 was set up by that unexpected revolutionary Margaret Thatcher, BBC and ITV output was also relatively frisky. But since then, the BBC lost its battle over the Iraq War with Tony Blair and a series of non-journalistic Tory placemen has reduced a once questioning news operation to its current tamed state.

Admittedly, as presenter of political programmes like the People’s Parliament and Powerhouse during the 90s, I’m biased, but that involvement means I’m also aware of the energy needed to keep C4’s iconic nightly news programme sweeping the boards at award ceremonies, with its outstanding coverage of the pandemic and foreign reporting woven throughout its schedule, including the excellent Undiscovered World, which would certainly be dumped by any private operator.

Channel Four News’ coverage of the war in Ukraine has been peerless – with just a fraction of the BBC’s resources and at least half the programme fronted live from Ukraine every night. Lindsay Hilsum – like the BBC’s Lyse Doucet – has helped transform our abstract understanding of war with reports from the civilian frontline in bunkers, hospitals and open-air kitchens.

All of this arises from the channel’s public sector control and special remit to commission distinctive programming, serve diverse audiences, reinvest profits in new shows and small production companies.

In the broadcasting eco-system, Channel Four is a lynchpin. That’s why the Coop Party wants it to be mutually owned by the taxpayer. It’s why singer Tanita Tikaram tweeted "Oliver Dowden the Dido Harding of culture … won't be happy until he's destroyed every broadcaster who holds power to account". It’s why David Attenborough weighed in against privatisation during a sham consultation whose results the government will not now publish.

Some hope Number Ten will struggle to find a buyer if they cannot change Channel Four’s remit. That move’s expected in a White Paper later this month, paving the way for a Media Bill in spring 2023 and a sale in early 2024, ahead of the expected general election.

If Boris Johnson thinks this will all be politically unproblematic, he isn’t looking closely enough. Already there’s a chorus of negative headlines across the political spectrum, a small group of outspoken Tory critics and a clear message about wrong priorities.

Boris Johnson won’t protect the public with index-linked benefits or an energy windfall tax, but will massage his own bruised ego by settling scores with an outspoken broadcaster.

The more pointless the Channel 4 sale becomes, the more infuriating its parliamentary priority. It’s not good governance, good business or good politics. Put simply – it’s a Sin.

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