Huge shake-up of UK TV: Ben Wallace says ‘it’s NOT for government’ to run CH4

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace today declared it is ‘not the Government’s business to run’ Channel 4 as ministers pushed on with selling the broadcaster as well as reining in the BBC and Netflix.

The TV company has been publicly owned since it was founded by Margaret Thatcher in 1982 – but the Tories are forging ahead with plans to privatise it, claiming public ownership is holding it back from competing with streaming giants.

Ministers will today release a blueprint that will also signal the death knell for the licence fee by saying the Government is ‘ready to implement a new way of funding the BBC‘.  

They will also give the UK media watchdog the power to draft and enforce a new video-on-demand code, aimed at setting standards for ‘larger TV-like services’ such as Netflix, ITV Hub and Now TV to level the rules with traditional broadcasters.

The maximum fine for a breach of the code will be £250,000 or an amount up to 5% of their revenue, whichever is higher.

Mr Wallace has said he feels Channel 4 produces some ‘great creative content’ but that it is ‘not the Government’s business to run a television channel’.

He spoke as the Government releases a White Paper which provides a first look at proposed plans for the channel to be privatised.

Speaking to ITV News, Mr Wallace said: ‘It’ll be good for it. Channel 4 will be able to commission or actually produce its own work, not just commission from other people or productions.

‘It will allow it to raise funds in a way that it can’t do when it’s a nationalised organisation. It will be allowed to compete and produce further good programming.’

Today’s white paper promises a ‘golden age’ of programming and make the British broadcasting system ‘fit for the streaming age’, including: 

Confirmation of the Government’s decision to privatise Channel 4;The Government is to overhaul the public service broadcasting remit so that TV channels no longer need to have ‘leisure’ shows about cooking and gardening; As part of the legislation US online giants such as Netflix and Amazon will be subject to stricter rules about harmful material, bringing them into line with traditional broad casters in the UK;At the moment Netflix is not regulated at all in the UK. These firms could be fined up to £250,000 or up to 5 per cent of annual turnover if they show ‘harmful content’ such as health misinformation.Reform the ‘listed events’ rules to make sure popular sporting events are still widely available on terrestrial TV;

Ben Wallace added that he felt the broadcaster produced ‘some great creative stuff’ but that some of its content ‘could be perfectly done by any commercial thing’.

But while visiting Workington in Cumbria, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was asked if it was right for Channel 4 to be privatised, and he said it was wrong – although admitted that voters were preoccupied with other matters.

He said: ‘No, it isn’t right that Channel 4 should be privatised, there’s no case for it.

‘But, I have to say as I go round Workington and other places, nobody is talking to me about Channel 4, they’re all talking to me about the fact they can’t pay their bills.

‘On behalf of all of them I’d say to the Government, for heaven’s sake, focus on the things that people are really concerned about – paying the bills, the tax hike the Government has imposed on you – not privatising Channel 4.’

The Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries has taken aim at the BBC today.

She said the current model is ‘completely outdated’ and that in the coming months ministers would be ‘looking very seriously about how we fund the BBC’. 

Mrs Dorries said she was also considering how media regulator Ofcom could ‘hold the BBC to account’. 

In January she had appeared to indicate the end of the licence fee when she said the latest funding deal would be its last, before subsequently toning down her remarks. 

But in a new interview with The Spectator she once again appeared to signal that the TV licence system of funding the corporation would be killed off. 

‘We are going to very soon announce that we are going to be looking very seriously about how we fund the BBC,’ she said. 

Mrs Dorries added that decisions about the matter will be taken ‘well ahead’ of the corporation’s charter renewal at the end of 2027, saying: ‘We are ready to implement a new way of funding the BBC.’ 

She told the magazine: ‘We’re going to be looking at how Ofcom hold the BBC to account and then very shortly after that we will be announcing other measures that we are going to put into place to start looking at how the BBC will be funded in the future so that we are well in time to have that in place for the charter renewal.’ 

A broadcasting white paper released today is expected to say that the Government will carry out a review of the licence fee funding model ahead of the next charter period, with more detailed plans laid out in the coming months. 

In January, Mrs Dorries confirmed that the licence fee would be frozen at £159 for the next two years, before increasing by roughly 10 per cent over the following four years. 

At the same time she said on social media that this licence fee announcement ‘will be the last’. 

She had also heralded an end to the ‘days of the elderly being threatened with prison sentences and bailiffs knocking on doors’ over non-payment of the licence fee.

But she later softened her public approach, saying in Parliament that it was ‘time to begin asking really serious questions about the long-term funding model of the BBC’. 

A Whitehall source said yesterday that ‘no decision has been made on what the BBC’s future funding model will look like’. 

The Culture Secretary has previously criticised the BBC’s ‘elitist’ and ‘snobbish’ approach and has accused the corporation of having too few working-class staff.

Among possible alternatives to the licence fee are some form of voluntary subscription model like Netflix uses, or allowing the BBC to have advertising, or through a general broadband levy. 

There have also been suggestions about linking a charge to people’s council tax – which generally increase with wealth rather than being a flat rate – while others have proposed a hybrid model which combines more than one of these ideas. 

Instead, more general rules about ‘reflecting all parts and people of the UK’ and ‘democratically impactful content’ will be brought in. 

Most of the current rules do not apply to the BBC because it is governed by its charter, but it affects commercial public service broadcasters such as ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5.