[[ Channel 4 Notes ]]

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a public-service British television station, broadcast to all areas of the United Kingdom (and also the Republic of Ireland), which began transmissions in 1982. Though entirely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned: Originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the station is now owned and operated by the Channel Four Television Corporation, a public body established in 1990 for this purpose and which came into operation in 1993, following the abolition of the IBA.

The station was established to provide a fourth television service to the UK that would break the duopoly of the BBC's two established television services and the single commercial broadcasting network, ITV, then the only services broadcast there. Though having seen new competition through the subsequent availability and growth of cable, satellite and digital terrestrial stations, Channel 4 still enjoys almost universal coverage, and a significant audience share.

Channel 4 was established with, and continues to hold, a remit of public service obligations which it must fulfil. The remit changes periodically, as dictated by various broadcasting and communications acts, and is regulated by the various authorities Channel 4 has been answerable to; originally the IBA, then the ITC and now Ofcom.

The preamble of the remit as per the Communications Act 2003 states that:
"The public service remit for Channel 4 is the provision of a broad range of high quality and diverse programming which, in particular:
demonstrates innovation, experiment and creativity in the form and content of programmes;

appeals to the tastes and interests of a culturally diverse society;makes a significant contribution to meeting the need for the licensed public service channels to include programmes of an educational nature and other programmes of educative value; andexhibits a distinctive character."

The remit also involves an obligation to provide Schools Programming, and a substantial amount of programming produced outside of Greater London, Initially Channel 4 was not intentionally broadcast to Wales. Prior to its establishment, a significant demand for a dedicated Welsh language service for Wales lead to the creation of S4C, that is Sianel Pedwar Cymru or Channel 4 Wales, which carried Welsh spoken programmes as well as some programmes as also broadcast on Channel 4. Limited frequency space meant that Channel 4 proper could not be broadcast alongside S4C, though carriage on digital cable, satellite and digital terrestrial television means that the station is now available to over 70% of Welsh viewers. Following the completion of switchover to digital broadcasting in Wales in 2009, Channel 4 should become available to all Welsh TV viewers, alongside S4C. Consequently S4C does not carry Channel 4 programming on the digital variant of its channel[7], resulting in S4C Digidol broadcasting for fewer hours than its analogue counterpart.

Channel Four Television Corporation

As an organisation, Channel 4 is known as the Channel Four Television Corporation, though this form is more recent than the station itself, having previously been the Channel Four Television Company, a subsidiary of the IBA, between 1982 and 1993.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the government began a radical process of re-organisation of the commercial broadcasting industry, which was written onto the statute books by means of the Broadcasting Act 1990. Significantly, this meant the abolition of the IBA, and hence the Channel Four Television Company. The result lead to the creation of a corporation to own and operate the channel, which would have a greater deal of autonomy and would eventually go on establish its other operations. The new corporation, which became operational in 1993, remained publicly owned and was regulated by the new Independent Television Commission (ITC), created under the same act. The ITC and its duties were later replaced by Ofcom, which like its predecessor is responsible for appointing the Corporation's board, in agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
In terms of the station's remit and other duties, the creation of the corporation meant little change, however the new corporation would have to manage its own advertising, rather than this being carried out on its behalf by the local ITV contractors.


History

Conception

Before Channel 4 and S4C, Britain had three terrestrial television services: BBC1, BBC2, and ITV. The Broadcasting Act 1980 began the process of adding a fourth, and Channel 4, along with its Welsh counterpart, was formally created by an Act of Parliament in 1982. After some weeks of test broadcasts, it began scheduled transmissions on 2 November 1982.
The notion of a second commercial broadcaster in the UK had been around since the inception of ITV in 1954 and its subsequent launch in 1955; the idea of an 'ITV2' was long expected and pushed for. Indeed television sets sold throughout the 1970s and early 1980s had a spare channel called 'ITV/IBA 2'. Throughout ITV's History and until Channel 4 finally became a reality, a perennial dialogue existed between the GPO, the government, the ITV companies and other interested parties, concerning the form such an expansion of commercial broadcasting would take. It was most likely politics which had the biggest impact in leading to a delay of almost three decades before the second commercial channel became a reality. With what can crudely be summed up as a clash of ideologies between an expansion of ITV's commercial ethos and a public service approach more akin to the BBC, it was ultimately somewhat of a compromise that eventually led to the formation of Channel 4 as launched in 1982.

One clear benefit of the 'late arrival' of the channel was that its frequency allocations at each transmitter had already been arranged in the early 1960s, when the launch of ITV2 was highly anticipated. This led to very good coverage across most of the country and few problems of interference with other UK based transmissions; a stark contrast to the problems associated with Channel 5's launch a decade and a half later.


The future

Channel 4 has in recent years raised concerns over how it might finance its public service obligations after digital switch-over. However, some certainty lies in the announcement in April 2006 that Channel 4's digital switch-over costs would be paid for by licence fee revenues.On March 28, 2007, Channel 4 announced plans to launch a music channel as a joint venture with UK media company EMAP which would include carriage on the Freeview platform. Channel 4 has since acquired a 50% stake in EMAP's TV business for a reported £28 million.

Funding

Channel 4 has never received any public funding. During the station's formative years, funding came from the ITV companies in return for their right to sell advertisements in their region on the fourth channel.Nowadays it pays for itself in much the same way as most privately run commercial stations, i.e. through the sale of on-air advertising, programme sponsorship, and the sale of any programme content and merchandising rights it owns, such as overseas sales and video sales. It also has the ability to subsidise the main network through any profits made on the corporation's other endeavours, which have in the past included subscription fees from stations such as E4 and Film4 (now no longer subscription services) and its 'video-on-demand' sales. In practice, however, these other activities are loss-making, and are subsidised by the main network. According to Channel 4's last published accounts, for 2005, the extent of this cross-subsidy was some £30 million.
The change in funding method came about by the Broadcasting Act 1990 when the new corporation was afforded the ability to fund itself. Originally this arrangement left a 'safety net' guaranteed minimum income should the revenue fall too low, funded by large insurance payments made to the ITV companies. Such a subsidy was never required, however, and these premiums were phased out by government in 1998. After the link with ITV was cut, the cross-promotion which had existed between ITV and Channel 4 also ended.


Programming

Channel 4 share of viewing 1992-2007 BARB figuresChannel 4 is a "publisher-broadcaster", meaning that it commissions or "buys" all of its programming from companies independent of itself, and was the first broadcaster in the United Kingdom to do so on any significant scale. This had the consequence of starting an industry of production companies that did not have to rely on owning an ITV licence in order to see their programmes air, though since Channel 4, external commissioning has become regular practise on the numerous stations that have launched since, as well as on the BBC and in ITV. Somewhat ironically, (and against the wider trend) being used to outsourcing its core function - programming - it is the only terrestrial broadcaster that has kept its transmission and playout operation in-house.
The requirement to obtain all content externally is stipulated in its licence. Additionally, Channel 4 also began a trend of owning the copyright and distribution rights of the programmes it aired, in a manner that is similar to the major Hollywood studios' ownership of television programs that they did not directly produce. Thus, although Channel 4 does not produce programmes, many are seen as belonging to it.
Channel 4 also pioneered the concept of stranded programming, where seasons of programmes following a common theme would be aired and promoted together. Some would be very specific, and run for a fixed period of time; the 4 Mation season, for example, showed innovative animation. Other, less specific strands, were (and still are) run regularly, such as T4, a strand of programming aimed at teenagers, on weekend mornings (and weekdays during school/college holidays); Friday Night Comedy, a slot where the channel would pioneer its style of comedy commissions, 4Music and 4Later, an eclectic collection of offbeat programmes transmitted to a cult audience in the early hours of the morning.
In its earlier years, Red Triangle was the name given to the airing of certain risqué art-house films, dubbed as being pornographic by many of Channel 4's critics, whilst general broadcasting of films on the station for many years came under the banner of Film on Four prior to the launch of the FilmFour brand and station in the late 1990s.
Its critically acclaimed news service, Channel 4 News, is supplied by ITN whilst its long-standing investigative documentary, Dispatches, causes perennial media attention.


Other Services

November 1998 saw Channel 4 expand beyond its remit of providing the 'fourth service' in a significant way, with the launch of FilmFour. Since then the corporation has been involved in a range of other activities, all in some way associated with the main channel, and mainly using the '4' brand.

Corporate Structure

Management

Channel 4 is run by a chief executive, whose role can be compared to that of the Director-General of the BBC. The chief executive is appointed by the chairman, which is a part-time position appointed by Ofcom.

Chairmen
Edmund Dell (1982–87)
Richard Attenborough (1987–92)
Michael Bishop (1993–97)
Vanni Treves (January 1998 – December 2003)
Luke Johnson (January 2004– )

Chief executives
Jeremy Isaacs (1981–87)
Michael Grade (1988–97)
Michael Jackson (1997–2001)
Mark Thompson (March 2002 – June 2004)
Andy Duncan (July 2004– )



Financial information

Channel 4's total revenue for the year to 31 December 2005 was £894.3 million, of which £735.2 million was generated by its main channel, and the remainder by its subsidiaries channels, sales of programming rights to other broadcasters, Film Four and "new media". Operating profits for the year to 31 December 2006 fell 70% to £14.5 million from £56.9 million in 2005.