Analysis: Channel 4 Staff Cull Plan Could Help Repair Ruptured Relations With Indies, But Some Commissioners May Pay The Price
deadline.comA producer wryly tells us that they arrived to Channel 4 HQ in late 2023 to discover a boarded-up front, feeling their way around to a narrow door on the side of the building “where there stands a huge f***ing bouncer.” If ever there was a metaphor for the British broadcaster’s relations with the indie sector in recent months, surely this is it.
After pulling up the commissioning drawbridge and passing on the financial pain of a disturbingly prolonged ad crisis, producers have oscillated between rage and disillusionment when the subject of Channel 4 rears its head.
There has been an inescapable sense that Channel 4 has not been listening to the concerns of its suppliers, even if this is hotly disputed by the broadcaster itself.
But the mood music has now changed. Channel 4 is, for the first time, publicly acknowledging that it must share in the pain being felt by producers.
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