Privatising Channel 4 will harm UK ‘levelling-up’ plan, warn TV bosses

theguardian.com:

Privatising Channel 4 would sabotage Boris Johnson’s efforts to boost the British economy and cut future tax revenues by hundreds of millions of pounds, senior cabinet ministers have been warned.

Four prominent Scottish television executives have written to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, urging them to oppose the “shortsighted” proposals to sell it off.

The previous UK culture secretary, Oliver Dowden, floated privatising the state-owned but advertising-funded broadcaster in a consultation paper last June, to consternation from the industry.

In their letters to the three ministers, which have been seen by the Guardian, the executives argue that Channel 4 plays an essential role in supporting and nurturing British broadcasting talent, making UK-wide programmes, in Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff and Leeds.

It buys programming from across the UK and guarantees to invest in programmes made outside London and the south-east. Channel 4 commissioning in the UK’s nations and regions is worth nearly £1bn to regional economies; it has spent £200m directly in Scotland since 2007, and supports 400 jobs.

It also allows production companies to own the rights to their programmes, unlike other channels, boosting the independent sector’s income. Producers argue this also means Channel 4 has much less economic value to private buyers, since they do not own the global rights to their shows.

“All evidence suggests, though, that once in private hands broadcasters prioritise shareholder returns, not broader public goals,” the four producers said. That, they warned, would cause “significant harm” to Boris Johnson’s levelling-up strategy, to spread investment and