Put aside the fact that the UK state could do with hundreds of millions of pounds and that selling a viable commercial asset is a far less costly way to get that money than borrowing, raising taxes or cutting spending.
The reason it is right to sell C4 is because it is a burden to the state but it is an asset to a private owner. What the state owns is a television station. What a buyer gets is a brand.
The state cannot harness the value of the C4 brand. Why this is so is exemplified by the current public outcry. Changing C4’s mission from being a scheduled broadcaster to being some other form of media company is a necessary but thankless task. No government would have an appetite to do it. As long as it is owned by the State, C4’s mission is circumscribed – it must remain a television channel. But owning a television channel now is like owning a telephone box was in 1990; not daft, but certainly not a good long-term investment. C4 will be hidebound by having to cater to the schedule imposed by the technology of television – 30 minute or 60 minute programs; watersheds etc. The pool of creative talent willing to work within such constraints will necessarily be restricted. As demographics play out and television audiences dwindle, so will the scope to take creative risks. A death spiral ensues. The likely future under state ownership of C4 is a protracted debate about whether to spend tax revenue bailing out C4 yet again.
By contrast, a private owner can leverage the C4 brand. In the short term, it can enjoy the proceeds of an extremely successful and coherent television station. In the longer term, C4 can harness its name recognition and brand loyalty to become that most valuable of products in the internet age – a liked and trusted curator of content. C4 is already doing this by buying in foreign language drama series and marketing them under the banner Walter Presents. Viewers identify this as a seal of approval. As a consequence, they give a show 15 minutes to prove its worth than the 5 that they might have given it if they had stumbled upon it via another route. The first result is that viewers find more quality, slow-burning content than they otherwise would have. The more important result is that there is a greater incentive for ambitious creatives to make such programs.
Those commentators who celebrate C4’s great programming and prophesize that it will be lost when C4 is sold off contradict themselves. If C4 is great under state ownership its future will be even better when freed of the constraints of state ownership.
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