The Stage

Viewer watchdog chair says C5 merger will damage C4’s public service role

Published Tuesday 2 March 2004 at 11:45 by Joanna Taylor

Channel 4 will be unable to fulfil its role as a public service broadcaster, damaging its ability to provide innovative programming, if a proposed merger with Channel 5 proceeds, a leading television campaigner has warned.

Jocelyn Hay, chair of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer, said she was concerned about the speculation of the public-owned company collaborating with a commercial broadcaster, especially at a time when the BBC’s future is under scrutiny.

Speaking to The Stage Hay said: “If, in response to being squeezed between BSkyB and a stronger ITV, C4 merges with C5, its chances of continuing to do what it was created to do are slim.

“It would mean the privatisation of C4 which was set up in 1982 to provide a public service for those people who were not well-serviced by the existing channels. Providing risk-taking and innovative programmes is its PSB but it has only been able to do that because it is a public- owned company, with no influence from shareholders.”

Hay’s comments come in response to reports that chief executive of C4 Mark Thompson has met with United Business Media and RTL, the joint owners of C5, to discuss combining the two broadcasters.

But C4 has since played down the rumours pointing out that such a deal would require government sanction and time consuming changes in legislation to allow it to become a private company.

However, Hay fears that Thompson may be planning the move in a bid to stengthen the channel’s position in the marketplace now it is faced with competition from the newly merged ITV.

She added: “Shareholders are not concerned with the public service obligations of a channel but about being commercial and making profits.”