What is Channel 4?
Channel 4 is a publicly-owned and commercially-funded UK public service broadcaster, with a statutory remit to deliver high-quality, innovative, alternative content that challenges the status quo.
Channel 4 was set up with a unique model as a ‘publisher-broadcaster’, meaning that we do not have any in-house production, but instead commission content from production companies throughout the UK.
We are a self-sufficient business that reinvests all profits back into programmes, at zero cost to the taxpayer. A ‘Robin Hood’ model of cross-funding means programmes that make money pay for others that are key to delivering our remit but that are loss-making e.g. News and Current Affairs.
Our twin goals as a content provider and business are to fulfil our remit and to be commercially self-sufficient.
Statutory public service remit – 15 elements, including:
- Be innovative and distinctive
- Stimulate public debate on contemporary issues
- Reflect cultural diversity of the UK
- Champion alternative points of view
- Inspire change in people's lives
- Nurture new and existing talent
State-owned public service broadcaster
- Established as a statutory corporation
- Regulated by Ofcom
- Subject to 16 licence quotas and other requirements, including:
- News and Current Affairs
- Originally commissioned programmes
- Out of London commissioning
- Access services
Social enterprise model
- Commercially funded
- Not-for-profit: all surplus goes back into content
- Robin Hood system of profit-making genres such as Factual Entertainment cross-funding loss-making ones like News and Current Affairs
Publisher-broadcaster
- No in-house production unlike the BBC, ITV or Sky
- 100% of UK programmes commissioned from UK production companies
- Supports wide range of companies across the Nations and Regions
- Works with large number of SMEs
