By Emmanuel Oluebube, Senior Correspondent, UK
Ofcom July 15, 2022 published its response to Channel 4 Corporation’s (C4C) Statement of Media Content Policy.
Under the Communications Act 2003, C4C must prepare an annual statement setting out its plans for meeting its content duties in the coming year, and reporting on its performance over the past year. C4C must consult with Ofcom before its publication, and take our guidance into account.
Ofcom’s annual review found that C4C is generally performing well against its remit and media content duties. According to the regulator,
The Corporation
- recovered strongly in 2021. It reported record revenues compared with 2020. Its stabilised financial position meant that it was able to restore its content budget back to 2019 levels, representing the third-highest annual investment in its history.
- performed well with audiences. Large numbers of viewers turned to C4C’s main channel and on-demand player to watch both established and new titles, and audiences continue to rate C4C’s services highly. But while the broadcaster maintained its audience share, we found that reach to all C4C channels is declining in line with industry trends. This places even more importance on its Future4 strategy to drive increased viewing to All4 and build its digital revenues, and C4C achieved record growth for on-demand viewing via All 4 to more than 1.5bn views in 2021.
- continued to invest in content outside of London. Channel 4 is already exceeding its voluntary commitment of 50 per cent of spend outside London by 2023 and is exceeding its Ofcom quota for 35per cent of hours outside of London by a sizeable margin.
- delivered content promoting new and diverse voices and perspectives. Highlights include its coverage of the Tokyo Paralympics and Russell T Davies’ successful drama, It’s a Sin.
But Ofcom also found that C4C underperformed in a couple of areas during last year. First, an extended outage of its subtitling, signing and audio description services in Autumn 2021 resulted in a breach of its licence conditions.
“Second, we are disappointed that C4C’s planned online content strand for teenagers is still yet to launch. We expect to see a clearer strategy around its approach to investing in high-quality content for children and teenagers.
This annual process is one component of Ofcom’s broader role in overseeing the performance of public service broadcasting in the UK. We have made recommendations to the Government, many of which were included in the recently published White Paper – ‘Up Next’ – and which the Government has indicated will be enacted in the forthcoming Media Bill.
There has been much discussion during the last year as to the future ownership model of Channel 4. Its future ownership and remit is a matter for Government and Parliament, not Ofcom. We will continue to work closely with the C4C management team to ensure that audiences continue to benefit from the broad range of diverse and innovative content across the range of its services,” Ofcom said.
