In a letter leaked online by the News Agents podcast, culture secretary Michelle Donelan has advised prime minister Rishi Sunak against privatising Channel 4.
Donelan’s predecessor, Nadine Dorries, had announced plans to privatise the state-run network in April last year following a consultation process.
But after taking post, her successor Michelle Donelan said in September 2022 that she would look again at the “business case” for privatising the channel.
Now, the leak suggests that the new culture secretary is opposed to selling it off.
The letter said: “After reviewing the business case, I have concluded that pursuing a sale at this point is not the right decision and there are better ways to secure C4C's (Channel 4 Corporation) sustainability and that of the independent production sector.”
Donelan added that any sale of Channel 4 would prove disruptive to the independent production sector “at a time when growth and economic stability are our priorities”.
Channel 4's existing commissioning model means that it provides support to independent British production companies and privatisation of the network may have threatened the continuity of that support.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS] has refused to comment on the legitimacy of the letter, with a department spokesperson simply saying that ministers are “looking again at the business case” for a sale, with “more on our plans” to be announced “in due course”.
Responding to the letter, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries was critical of the idea that the government could U-turn on the plans, warning that “three years of a progressive Tory government” were being “washed down the drain” and that the public purse could lose out by as much as £2 billion by not going through with the sale.
However, Labour shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell, welcomed the idea of a reversal and said that the government's “vendetta against Channel 4” had always been “wrong for Britain, growth in our creative economy, and a complete waste of everyone's time.”
