Channel 4: Privatisation (Communications Committee Report)

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a particular pleasure to speak in the debate. In doing so, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I also want to salute the noble Lord, Lord Best, for all his work as chair of the Communications Committee, not least on all the reports pertaining to broadcasting.

When I was growing up in the post-industrial, grey West Midlands, the most amazing of bright lights arrived, in the form of a multicoloured figure of four. Even the “4”, on-screen, before 2 November, was exciting for us in believing a new channel was arriving in our town. I was 11. I did not know about ownership models; I did not know that the channel was going to be publicly owned and privately funded; I did not know about the statutory remit; I did not know it was going to be a publisher broadcaster. I did not know any of that, but I knew that the channel, once it started—with the cutting-edge “Dispatches”, “Channel 4 News”, American football, “The Tube” and the monstrous Max Headroom—was mind-blowing television for me. I did not know the word “diversity”, but I knew this was different. It changed my viewing habits and, through that, it changed my view.

Later in life, I learned about the operating model, ownership, the statutory remit and much more but, fundamentally, that point of the purpose of the channel stuck with me from those very first viewing days. What I believe is the golden thread can be simply and essentially expressed: a model that enables profit into programmes. That profit is 20% of the UK television ad market—some £1 billion. It may interest your Lordships to know that the first advert ever to be screened on Channel 4 was for the Vauxhall Cavalier 1600 GLS—a nice car. I am tempted to ask whether the Minister is still driving his. To come right up to date, that ad money is going into content, whether we are talking about TV or new media. Everything about the future is about content and Channel 4 currently puts 64% of its revenues into content.

As noble Lords have mentioned, perhaps the greatest reason for having a Channel 4 was demonstrated by its coverage of the Paralympic Games. I was fortunate to do the deal with Channel 4 for the summer 2012 Paralympic Games in London. What the channel did no other broadcaster could have done. It was innovative, ground-breaking, challenging, attitude-altering and opportunity-creating broadcasting. Right from the moment of signing the contract and through the ad campaign, that jokey, jaunty style of Channel 4 was evident; for example, the trailer featuring Paralympians coming out of the tunnel post-Olympics with the strapline, “Thanks for the warm-up”. “Meet the Superhumans” was one of the greatest pieces of sports marketing ever made to promote the Games, with “The Last Leg” getting into all the issues not just around Paralympic sport but around disability. It used the Games as a driver to get into people’s minds and homes, shaping attitudes, beliefs and understanding in relation not just to disability but the whole world of diversity.

Channel 4 did that not just for 2012; it took it forward to Rio 2016. It increased both the level of coverage and the number of those involved in it, with 75% of talent on-screen and behind the cameras being disabled. It also used 2016, the year of the Rio Paralympics, as the channel’s year of disability. I was delighted to chair the year of disability advisers, not just because we had a great mission on our hands but because, as an acronym, it spelt YODA.

Beyond programming, 50% of Channel 4 apprenticeships and 35% of work experience placements went to disabled people last year—pushing and stretching what is possible more and more. That was 2012 and 2016. How different does the UK feel in the summer of 2017 compared to that golden summer not just of sport but of possibility in 2012? Now we have Brexit, a hung Parliament, the fighting in Raqqa, questions about Russia, terrorism and Trump. If there was a need and purpose for Channel 4, a gap in the market, in 1982, the need is tenfold, a hundredfold, in the summer of 2017.

And that begins in the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. The channel already exceeds its nations and regions target of 35%. Routinely, more than 55% of new starts on the main channel, expressed in terms of cash and hours of coverage, derive from the nations and regions. In 2016, the proportion from Wales and Northern Ireland doubled, with a fivefold increase from the Midlands, supporting SMEs, employing more than 17,000 people and unleashing ideas and talent right across the United Kingdom.

Commissioning spend is the most effective means of driving regional economic growth in the United Kingdom—those are not my words or those of Channel 4, but those of the indies through their umbrella association, PACT. Yes, the channel does a lot, but there is more to do in continually striving to see how we can be bolder as a channel and achieve more in terms of production, enablement and empowerment across the nations and regions.

We are at a turning point for Channel 4. The don that is David Abraham is soon to depart, to be replaced by the marvellous Alex Mahon. Yes, the leadership is changing; yes, the crown is passing, but the mission remains the same. As the right reverend Prelate said, diversity in all its forms is about the nations and regions, but it is about so much more than that if we are to connect with this country and to enable it to feel like a United Kingdom once again. The leadership is changing. The mission remains the same: to stretch, challenge, push and provoke—producers, indies, commissioners and editors, as much as the viewing public. It is in the statute; it is in the staff; it is in the very DNA of the channel. That is the remit; that is the purpose; that is the point of Channel 4.