The Great Channel 4 Kerfuffle

Also: a few thoughts on trying to build a newsletter

I think (I am not willing to investigate far enough to be certain) that more than half of my paying subscribers to this newsletter are based in America. This speaks, firstly, to the enormous generosity of the American people (not to mention their GDP). But, secondly, it stands to reason that they (which is to say you) might not know what’s going on here in the UK, with what we might call The Great Channel 4 Kerfuffle.

You might, indeed, not even know what Channel 4 is. I wouldn’t blame you; many people involved in this debate here in the UK don’t seem to know what it is. At its most simple level, it provided a fourth TV service here in the UK: slots 1 and 2 were occupied by the taxpayer-funded BBC, and the third slot by privately owned and operated ITV, which launched in 1955. In 1982 it was, apparently, decided that these three channels allow could not meet the huge appetites of Britain’s TV-watching public, and so a fourth channel emerged.

Channel 4 is a commercial channel, funded by advertising against its content. But it is owned (at least currently) but the Channel Four Television Corporation, a government entity created to facilitate the launch of the channel. As such, it has a slightly uneasy identity: it feels more private-sector than its competitors at the BBC, but is still bound by the rules of a state-owned broadcaster. Anyhow, that’s the basics on the organisation that, last week, Culture Secretary, and known village idiot, Nadine Dorries put up for sale.