, the broadcaster said: “Moving Channel 4 into private ownership will have an inevitable and fundamental impact on the incentives and culture of the organization. Under public ownership, the remit permeates Channel 4’s full range of programming – far beyond the specific quotas required by its licence.”
“Under private ownership, Channel 4’s fiduciary duty would be to maximise returns to shareholders. This dynamic can be seen in other commercially funded, but privately-owned PSBs like ITV. For instance, ITV’s most recent results show an EBITA [Earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization] margin of c.20%.
“Given this, a private owner would have a natural and legitimate incentive to seek both to dilute the more commercially onerous parts of the channel’s remit and to scale back those additional public benefits, whether that is covering public service themes in our mainstream programs or our training and skills initiatives, which are not mandated by the statutory remit,” the response continued.
Going forward, Channel 4, given its reach amongst the U.K. youth population, has set out a plan to invest an additional £50 million in content for younger viewers, focused on streamed and social content. Channel 4 also plans to expand as a publisher-broadcaster internationally, helping indies creating new formats with global potential and launching an advertiser-funded international streaming service.
The broadcaster also said it would accelerate its role as a public service catalyst across the U.K., with £5 million of investment to reach 15,000 young people annually with training and development initiatives from 2022.