Channel 4 Bows To Pressure & Commits To Making More Shows Outside England
deadline.comChannel 4 has bowed to pressure from producers and will slowly start making more shows outside of England, its boss Alex Mahon revealed today.
Producers have been ramping up calls in recent months on the nation’s youth-skewing pubcaster to increase its commitment to make 9% of its shows in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which has stood since 2020.
For the first time this morning at the Creative Cities Convention, Mahon said “I think we will try” and boost the 9% quota, satisfying calls from the likes of trade body Pact and various creative industry bodies. “There have been questions on us to make [the 9% quota] bigger,” Mahon told the Bristol event. “We will try and do more because we need to think more carefully about how we represent people on air.
It is time to make that shift to support companies [outside England] more sustainably.” Mahon was tight-lipped on how much Channel 4 will increase the proportion by but Deadline understands any move will be incremental and will take in market conditions, which are currently tricky due to the ad recession.
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