Pact Response to the Government’s Statement on Channel 4 Given Freedom to Make and Own its Own Content

We are pleased that the Government has backed Pact’s calls for the new Channel 4 arms-length commercial subsidiary to be properly regulated independently by Ofcom and UKGI.

Since the beginning of the year, Pact has worked to convince the Government to consider a regulatory system - similar to that of BBC Studios - to ensure more transparency around how a new production arm will operate in the market.

We welcome the Government’s proposal that Ofcom will in future be required to report on how Channel 4’s production arm is operating in the market in its regular review of UK Public Service Broadcasting.

Pact is pleased that the current out of 50% London quota will be committed to by Channel 4 Corporation ensuring that any changes to this voluntary quota would have a higher threshold to satisfy, and we also welcome the increased indie quota from 25% to 35%.

We are, however, disappointed that Government has decided not to cap how much in-house production the new subsidiary could win as we originally proposed.

Finally we are pleased that that Government will no longer pursue plans to change the definition of an indie producer, which would have potentially damaged investment in the sector and created an additional burden on both independent producers and commissioning broadcasters.

Pact Chief Executive, John McVay OBE, said: “Pact welcomes the fact that Government has listened to many of our proposals to ensure the regulation of Channel 4’s commercial production arm. However, we would call on Channel 4 to carefully consider any move into in-house production given the current difficult market conditions.”