Jon Thoday: C4 sale will destroy indie sector

The privatisation of Channel 4 will “destroy the indie sector”, according to Jon Thoday, who sounded the alarm on a sale to ITV in particular.

The Avalon founder delivered an impassioned plea for C4 to remain in public hands at the Edinburgh TV Festival today (26 August), arguing that a sale would represent a “complete disaster for newer indies and new talent who are the lifeblood of the future”.

He fears that there is a specific government agenda to engineer a sale to ITV specifically which would “lead to a decline in commissioning of newer indies”.

“Any sale will stop the BBC from being kept honest and end the progress of the past 20 years in one fell swoop.”

Thoday urged the Conservatives to enable the broadcaster to embrace SVoD as part of its model while remaining publicly owned, flagging that C4 was part-funded by ITV when it first launched as “the industry thought having a second public service platform was a good thing”.

Thoday was speaking alongside All3Media chief executive Jane Turton, who positioned her focus on the debate as being “around the things that need to be protected, rather than the narrow question of who has a share certificate sitting in their safe”.

“I’m not naïve and know that different buyers will look at different synergies but think the most helpful thing I can do is underscore the role C4 plays and will continue to play long into the future,” she said.

Turton stopped short of coming out against privatisation and noted that a sale may not be a bad result for producers. “There is a world in which more money is being spent by C4 than currently,” she said.

US media giant Liberty Global is both an ITV and All3Media shareholder and Thoday suggested that a sale to the broadcaster would ultimately make the super-indie a beneficiary.

He later claimed the PSBs have in part brought the privatisation issue onto themselves by being too defensive in the face of the streamer threat.

“To some extent, the government may be reasonable to think ‘C4 has had it, we had better sell to help it survive’.”

Kate Monaghan, founder of ‘micro-producer’ Hey Sonny Films, backed Thoday’s claim that privatisation would have a devastating impact on small businesses, which are less able to pick up commissions from alternative players such as the SVoDs.

“C4 is really trying with small, diverse indies around the nation and if sold I want to know what safeguards will be put in place to make sure that stays,” she said.

Thoday predicted any such safeguards introduced as part of a sales process would be “eroded” over time.

Monaghan, who is one of the few disabled people running an indie, urged the industry to “hold on to the strands of change” that have been initiated by the pandemic, such as disabled people being allowed to work from home.

She called for more “reverse co-pros” in order to better tell disabled stories, with large companies pairing with smaller disabled-led outfits on ideas specifically about disability.

Turton backed this idea as a “way of catalysing change by creating an environment that is diverse by design”.