There is something unseemly about those of us who were at Channel 4 on November 2 1982 going on about the good old days.
The world has changed completely since then and the C4 licence has undergone many revisions. But the brilliantly simple, infinitely flexible brief from parliament – the remit – has remained essentially the same: be distinctive, innovate, cater for unrepresented tastes and interests, maintain a broad range and include programmes of an educational nature.
In this era of relentless focus on the economic value of the creative industries the approach taken by the Conservative government of the 1980s seems visionary. This first new television channel since BBC2 in 1964 was seen as above all a cultural, not a business, one.
C4 was not to compete with its peers for resources but for esteem and distinctiveness. It was to follow a remit to be different and given the funding freedom to take the risks that would deliver it.
That remit is seen as the channel’s great bulwark but there is a real danger that it could become its greatest weakness in the forthcoming argument over privatisation.
That argument is now too simply focused on the issue of the remit as the sacred bellwether of C4’s future security. It is widely believed that the value of any transaction will be directly related to how much of the remit is written into the conditions of sale. The more the remit, the less revenue for the chancellor: the more contribution to the exchequer, the less remit to be distinctive goes the argument. The channel’s defenders are watching every word.
But there is a danger in sanctifying the remit in this way. It is only a handful of words. And their meaning is capable of quite elastic interpretation. Back in 1982 some of the ITV companies had fully expected that the injunction to cater for minority interests would mean badminton and macramé rather than football and variety shows and were not happy at finding indie movies and Irish politics on their screens.
The power of the remit was and is only to enable courage and ambition on the part of those running the channel. It is a necessary – but by absolutely no means sufficient – condition of adventurous programming. It is meaningless without two other things: a board and executive with creative courage and a funding context which gives it half a chance of realising its potential.
In the 34 years of the channel’s life successive bosses have squeezed and moulded the remit to their own creative ambitions and economic circumstances.
Each one in his way (women CEOs still a risk too far) has felt the hand of history on his shoulder and pursued creative innovation and diversity as far as was consistent with generating the resources he needed to make programmes.
Privatisation – even with the remit word for word intact – would change that single-minded focus completely. It would put an end to the continuing financial protection that C4 enjoys today as a statutory corporation where all profits are returned to the business.
Shareholders would rightly demand a return on their investment. Profits would be distributed, not ploughed back, and the pressure to increase them by steering the remit towards the most popular forms of distinctiveness and the cheapest forms of innovation would become irresistible. The remit could appear in letters of gold at the top of the Memorandum and Articles and it would make no difference to a chief executive bound to a different master.
Of course there is a perfectly good argument for privatising C4. It is a brand with unrealised value which the market could release. It occupies valuable spectrum which could also yield more. It is a public asset which – some believe – could yield more public benefit if run on commercial lines. Furthermore the national debt is a good cause.
What it is not possible to believe is that a privatised channel would deliver as wide a range of programming or take as many risks with new talent and new ideas. It is widely assumed by the opponents of privatisation that it would lead to a plunge in programme quality. Possibly but by no means necessarily. The media market can always produce quality. A privatised C4 could certainly pitch upmarket with a high-quality schedule catering – in faithful service of the remit – to tastes and interests not catered for elsewhere. What the free market in television always finds more difficult is range in programming – the very essence of C4 to date.
The question is whether this generation of Conservative leaders retain their predecessors’ sense that television is a piece of the fabric of popular culture – where its ability to prioritise diversity and innovation makes a unique contribution – or an asset like any other to be grown to full value and then sold for cash.
It may seem to some slightly absurd to worry so much about one old terrestrial channel when there are thousands more available at the end of a fibre optic cable or from a satellite dish. And yet the remarkable feature of the current marketplace is that, with all the choice available, viewing of the main broadcast channels remains extraordinarily stable.
Digital terrestrial TV remains the most popular way of watching television and the main five public service broadcasting PSB channels accounted for just over half of all viewing in 2014 even with 536 other UK channels to choose from. That share is dropping slowly, as is the number of minutes per day people spend watching live TV, but the British public’s loyalty to its traditional television outlets is remarkable.
Television channels are not pork barrel futures or redundant government buildings. They are creators, patrons and purveyors of a highly popular (in both senses) variety of entertainment, information and culture to millions.
In the days of spectrum scarcity the British broadcasting landscape was moulded with skill and deliberation to maximise sustainable choice for the viewer with each broadcaster playing a distinctive role.
That landscape has adapted to the arrival of the burgeoning digital marketplace and thrives alongside it to the benefit of both. Moving a major chunk of it to be something different and play a different part is a big step.
There will always be arguments about the channel’s success in delivering its remit. It no longer shows Sanskrit operas or Berlin Alexanderplatz in peak or any other time. But it remains a distinctive voice, an essential market for a wide range of quality UK production and a channel which dares to do things others can’t or won’t.
The abortive attempt to privatise the forests should perhaps have taught the government a more nuanced approach to valuing national assets.
The BBC could reasonably claim that moving BBC3 to the web is simply moving the channel to its audience’s natural home and thus serving it better. I have yet to hear anyone argue seriously that privatising C4 would benefit its audience.
Liz Forgan was a founding commissioning editor and then director of programmes at Channel 4 and now chairs the Scott Trust.
This is an edited extract from What Price Channel 4? a collection of essays published by Abramis and edited by John Mair, Fiona Chesterton, David Lloyd, Ian Reeves and Richard Tait
