Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow has launched a passionate defence of the broadcaster a day after the government inadvertently revealed proposals for its £1bn privatisation.
Snow, one of the channel’s most familiar and important faces, said Channel 4 was a “trustworthy brand in the age of the social network” and there were “grave dangers in knocking it about”, adding: “If it ain’t broke, then why fix it?”
After weeks of ministerial denials that a sell-off of the channel was under discussion, a government official was photographed walking into Downing Street on Thursday with a document setting out options for its sell-off.
Labour criticised the plans as an “ideological fire-sale” that is not in the public interest.
“Channel 4 is a completely unique model. There is no television service like it anywhere in the world and Channel 4 News is a unique product of the creation of the channel,” Snow told the Guardian.
“Almost nowhere else in the world do you get a team of seriously accomplished journalists, technicians and the rest who are working to one daily product. There is no sausage machine television news for Channel 4.”
Snow said Channel 4 News was “one quality hit a day and unlike many of our competitors we have even increased our audience share over the last year.
“There is a demand for it, and in the age of the social network people are looking for trustworthy brands. Despite the fact I work for it, it is a trustworthy brand and there are grave dangers in knocking it about.
“If it ain’t broke, then why fix it. It makes money – all the money goes back into the channel with nearly £1bn [in revenues] a year. It all goes back. There’s not a commercial TV service in the world that is able to do this.”
Later on Friday, speaking at the Radio Times festival, Snow said: “I’m not myself opposed necessarily to privatisation. If anything, if it works much better than any other way, that’s the right thing to do.
“But what I’m arguing here is it’s a very, very delicate set-up, and if you move a bit of it about, it may break, and therefore it’s worth preserving.”
The photographed leaked document, written by a senior civil servant within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, said : “Work should proceed to examine the options of extracting greater public value from the Channel 4 corporation, focusing on privatisation options in particular.”
Culture secretary John Whittingdale has used recent public appearances to say there were no plans to privatise the state-owned, commercially funded broadcaster, while refusing to rule it out in the future.
He told last month’s Edinburgh TV festival: “The ownership of Channel 4 is not currently under debate. Do I say there are no circumstances in which I would ever consider it? No I don’t.”
Snow said: “It’s just so very curious that we all received a statement a month ago that there was no plan, to find someone walking into Downing Street with what looked like a plan.”
The sale could raise up to £1bn for Treasury coffers, but the price would depend on the conditions that are attached to the sale, including what happens to the broadcaster’s remit to take risks and cater for minority audiences.
The tougher the public service requirements, the less attractive it is likely to be as a commercial proposition. Whittingdale said last month: “What I do say is the remit of Channel 4 is a priority and it’s not going to change.”
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