Jimmy Mulville, Hat Trick Productions

This is personal. Without Channel 4, there would be no Hat Trick Productions. Let’s face it, without Channel 4, there would be no independent production sector - undoubtedly the biggest success story of British media in the past 40 years.

Hat Trick was kickstarted in 1986 by Mike Bolland, the brilliant, risk-taking head of C4 comedy and entertainment at the time. He took a gamble on our very first show, Chelmsford 123 – a sitcom set in Ancient Britain – swiftly followed by our first big hit, Whose Line Is It Anyway?.

Thanks to Mike and C4, we were off and running – and we weren’t alone. After C4’s inception in 1982, new production companies started to sprout up encouraged by this cool new broadcaster bringing innovative, diverse and creative content to the screen.

It was a time of real change for the better. By the end of the 1980s, the BBC, fearing it was missing out on ideas, started to take meetings with the likes of us and we landed Have I Got News For You on BBC2 in 1990.

ITV took a while longer to read the road signs, but by the turn of the century, even it had caved in to the sheer strength, quality and ingenuity of the independent sector.

Young people entering our industry wanted to join indies rather than the bigger corporations, so we had the pick of the bunch and began to train the next generation of talented programme-makers, who went on to run their own companies, creating more opportunity, competition and wealth.

“I’m open-mouthed that this Tory government thinks it’s a good plan to flog off this unique institution like some secondhand Volvo”

Forty years later, in entertainment, comedy, drama and factual, it’s the indie sector that sets the creative standard. A lot of those indies are now owned by larger companies that are hungry for great content – including, ironically, the BBC and ITV.

And that’s fine, because C4 is still there to encourage, support - and sometimes invest in - the next generation of small indies, some of which will grow and in turn contribute to our nation’s cultural life and economic wellbeing. The virtuous circle rolls on.

It’s abundantly clear that none of the above would ever have been happened without Margaret Thatcher’s only good idea: the creation of Channel 4.

So I’m open-mouthed that this Tory government thinks it’s a good plan to flog off this unique institution like some second-hand Volvo, and destroy one of the most consistent forces for creative, cultural and commercial productivity this country has ever seen.