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Comment by stuaxo | Hacker News Reader

This is vandalism. Channel 4 uses no government money and has a remit to show programming other channels cannot.

The only reason this is on the table is because they critised the current government.

Boris is letting Nadine Dorries do what she wants as a thank you for her unswerving loyalty. It's incredible someone so incompetent and frankly, stupid, is a cabinet minister.

Honestly, considering what the goverment is doing, I think there needs to be real questions asked about who are they trying to serve. It doesn't really seem like it's the British public.

That could be a decent summary of the last decade under the current government.

For those outside of the UK, it has been a disaster.

'Money made from the sale will be reinvested in a "creative dividend" to be shared among the TV industry, with some of it earmarked for independent production companies.'

Funds from the sale of a publicly owned asset should not just be handed to other commercial organisations. Unless of course, your mates own those organisations, amiright?

> The only reason this is on the table is because they critised the current government.

The govt offloaded their stake in Natwest a week ago to raise over £1bn, I think they're just liquidating some assets.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/28/natwest-buy...

We already have the BBC - why do we need a second state broadcaster?

Well Channel 4 actually critique the government for one… secondarily they produce different content than the BBC which will also soon be privatised.

We must watch different programs on the BBC. I see BBC presenters and journalists criticizing the government every day.

To be fair, it's not up to the BBC to criticise. They should be reporting impartially and let the folks make up their mind.

What is and isn’t a critique is so subjective. What we really mean is that the BBC is willing to report news that doesn’t fast the government in a good light. Contrast this with day Al Jazeera which never has reports on the wrongdoings of its primary country.

The BBC has been pretty anti-government since about the time of Brexit. It was really obvious in particular during the pandemic, which had many decisions where all options had major downsides - and they spun whichever the government chose as obviously bad, focusing entirely on the downsides of that particular choice, then forgot about all those downsides and switched to spinning the new choice as the bad one the moment the government changed their mind. They also tend to just outright parrot opposition talking points without questioning or challenging them in any way, because that's reserved for stuff the government does. They even managed to outright knowingly lie about how the UK's Covid response compares to other countries in Europe during the early days of the pandemic, and apparently this doesn't violate their standards in any way.

They're just not anti-government enough for a lot of people; for example, their journalists don't get to tell readers that every single Covid death was caused by Boris and he should go to jail for criminal manslaughter, even though that's clearly something they back given... certain retweets.

Do you read the Daily Mail?

This is a bad take.

Neither the BBC nor Channel 4 are state broadcasters.

They are both editorially and operationally independent from the government (which is why this government hates both of them).

state-owned - i.e. not beholden to corporate owners.

Three, BBC, Channel 4 and S4C.

Even Australia with only 25 million has two, and IMO it's nowhere near enough. Ireland has two.

Germany has twelve and through those also participates in two transnational public media organisation. Much of it is a purposeful legacy of the allied occupation because one of the earliest things Hitler did is consolidating all broadcasting.

Why you ask have more than one public media organisation? Because you ensure diversity of opinion, create a resilient network, create specialities, ensure regional representation, provide funding and funding options, provide diversity in all manners, more independence from government interventions, etc., etc.

Spain has 13.

The public service remit is vital.

And don't use the term 'broadcaster' for the concept because it limits their role. It might be much of what they do, but think video game funder, social media, keeper of historical heritage, open-source development, educational platform, trusted source of facts (as in Wikipedia), diplomatic tool, amplifier of diversity in all aspects, keeper of audio-visual libraries ... the possibilities are endless.

> Channel 4 uses no government money

So, it's already private?

No, it's owned by the government but doesn't take any government funding.

Who owns the capital? If it's the government, then yes, it's state funded even if it doesn't require constant capital injections

It is funding the state not being funded by the state.

Can you really call something 'state funded' if it receives no funds from the state? I can't see any justification for that definition.

State owned, not state funded. Pretty easy to understand distinction so I assume you're wilfully misrepresenting the situation.

Channel 4 owns the capital.

Like, Elon Musk owns SpaceX (or at least a controlling share), but he doesn't fund it. SpaceX funds itself, and SpaceX owns that capital.

No, its funded by advertising but owned by the government. That means they have more remit to do what they like (no shareholders like Murdock to appease).

It is owned by the government but generates all it's own funding via advertising, selling programming slots and selling content overseas (Film4, for example).

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