UK Government Confirms Privatized Channel 4 Will Be Allowed To Create Shows In-House

deadline.com:

The UK’s independent production sector is set to be transformed after the Conservative Government confirmed broadcaster Channel 4 will be allowed to make and sell its own programmes once it’s privatized.Earlier this month, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport revealed it would push ahead with controversial plans to sell the government-owned Channel 4 to private hands, and today partially fleshed out its proposal in a broader White Paper setting out a vision for Britain’s Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) future.Restrictions preventing Channel 4 from creating its own shows will lift after the sale, allowing it to “diversify its revenue streams and improve its long-term sustainability.” This would bring the channel in-line with rivals BBC, ITV and Channel 5, which all have in-house production business to greater and lesser extents.Channel 4 would still be required to commission a “minimum volume of programming” from indie producers, “in line with the quotas placed on other PSBs,” although the level wasn’t specified.The development will be devastating for the UK’s thriving production sector.Since the 2003 Terms of Trade agreement, indies have prospered massively from Channel 4’s existing ‘publisher-broadcaster’ model.

In effect, this stops Channel 4 from owning content and allows its producers to retain rights to their commissions.However, the Government claimed the UK production sector, now worth around £3BN ($3.8BN), was less reliant on Channel 4 for commissions and added that only 7% of those revenues come from the broadcaster.

Additionally, it cited PACT census statistics to suggest the broadcaster spent considerably less (£210M) on external commissions than the BBC (£508M) and ITV (£356M) in 2020.