It seems that Channel 4 might not be ‘privatised’ by the government after all. As an independent film producer in the south-east of England, I have my own view of the alternatives being proposed, as I explain below.
A challenge to the establishment
Channel 4 was set up and launched as a public service broadcast TV channel in 1982 as the ‘fourth button’ on our TVs. It legally exists by statute, mandated as a ‘public’ free-to-air channel. This was to offer programmes with the aim of attracting an audience tired of the output from BBC1 – dominated by light entertainment (The Black & White Minstrel Show, Dad’s Army etc) and documentaries (Horizon, Panorama and many others with a Reithian mission “to inform, educate and entertain”), the News (9 o’clock and Newsnight) and solid period drama (The Forsyte Saga, All Creatures Great and Small, The Onedin Line, I Claudius among many).
ITV was not much greater in its diversity either but at least pioneered long drama film series such as Brideshead Revisited and Inspector Morse, and dodgy looking soaps with poor production values like Crossroads and Emmerdale Farm, as it used to be called. But ITV’s big ratings ‘banker’ was, and still is, ‘Corrie’ (Coronation Street), although I confess I stopped watching when Ena Sharples and Minnie Caldwell, stalwarts at the Rovers’ Return, passed away … And where would we be as an audience without Elsie Tanner and pin-up boy Ken Barlow? (Although in his mid-eighties he’s still there!).
Channel 4’s initial offerings
Channel 4 launched in 1990 in a blaze of glory with Countdown featuring a glamorous mathematician, Carol Vorderman. (It was made by the ITV Network company, Yorkshire Television – not an ‘indie’ – and it is still running); the sometimes controversial soap Brookside (which was independently produced in Liverpool); and Channel 4 News, made by ITV’s ITN News (not an independent production company) with a determination to be seen as apart from the main news editorial agenda set by the BBC and ITN.
The Channel, now operated by Channel 4 Television Corporation, opened its doors in 1990, in Charlotte Street, London W1 to anyone and everyone with an idea for new programmes, especially from would-be independent producers (mostly from Islington) who couldn’t be, or weren’t BBC or ITV staffers; those mainly not ‘Oxbridge’ shoo-ins but people with vigorous and challenging ideas for new productions. Cue eventually Big Brother, The Big Breakfast, Grand Designs and many others of very variable success and watchability.
I confess to being among them, getting our first ever independent commission to make a documentary about the gallant veterans of the Dunkirk evacuation to Dover, Kent in 1940. Ultimately, the company I worked for (based cosily also in Charlotte Street) ended up annually making 50 hours of weekly live rock shows (Rock Steady) and arts documentaries (Signals) for Channel 4. Those were the days!
Fiercely independent
Channel 4 prides itself on being completely advertiser-funded but fiercely independent, no mean feat given its audience is around the same size as that of the licence fee funded BBC2, and so far survives despite the onslaught of hundreds of TV satellite or cable channels, dominated by Netflix, Amazon Prime and the Auntie’s BBC iPlayer. Can it carry on by surviving on advertiser revenue, given massive commercial spending across other commercial broadcasters and internet-based players?
The jury’s out on that one – but the government (despite many back-bench MPs of the governing party resenting its independence and alleged anti-establishment stances) and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport seem to think so.
“Look north, young folk!”
Now, attempting to ‘diversify’ away from the South or to level up, many of Channel 4’s operations have moved to Leeds in the North of England. So we in the south-east, in London, Surrey and Kent, face long journeys to pitch our ideas, if we can be bothered. Face-to-face pitching, which is far more effective than by email or ‘Zoom’, is much more difficult, especially now, thanks to the ongoing industrial action on rail, that we no longer have a reliable train service, or even air. So, what price an open door, or accessibility?
Very few indies
Principal players producing programmes for Channel 4 are subsidiary production companies owned by the BBC, ITV, Disney and others. Very few are made by small-scale ‘indies’. So, some of the independent producers are turning to You Tube and other internet platforms for an outlet but they have to be self-funded which is a tough call. Channel 4 isn’t what it used to be as a champion of the independent production sector in a tough commercially dominated environment.
Truly, life’s a pitch for anyone wishing to be an ‘independent voice’.
Philippe Bassett has been an independent TV producer since the 1990s
