U.K. broadcaster Channel 4 has posted robust revenues of £1.14 billion ($1.47 billion) for 2022. The figure was only a 2% drop from last year’s record £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion).
“2022 was operationally and financially a very successful year,” the network’s CEO Alex Mahon told reporters at a press briefing on Wednesday morning local time as the results were announced.
One third of revenues came from streams other than traditional linear advertising, Mahon said, and the network also expanded non-advertising revenue to 11% of total revenue.
The network also posted strong results in video-on-demand, clocking up 1.4 billion streaming views in 2022, almost the same figure as in 2021, which was boosted by lockdowns. April 2022 was Channel 4’s best month for VOD with 5 billion minutes streamed.
Mahon also noted that now the threat of privatization had been lifted, Channel 4 was able to focus on its strategy. Earlier this year the U.K. government confirmed it had canceled plans to privatize the broadcaster.
But she said the privately-funded public service broadcaster was not out of the woods yet and, like other PSBs including the BBC, ITV and Channel 5, was relying on the Media Bill, which is currently working its way through the Houses of Parliament, to be passed in order to protect the broadcasters.
The Media Bill includes implementing rules to ensure public service content is prominent and accessible for viewers, for example with special buttons on remote controls and desirable placing on EPGs.
“You’ve heard me talk before about the dangers to young people of nine hours of screen time a day and 60% of algorithmically controlled in terms of what you’re served, which is only going to get worse with more AI,” said Mahon. “Public service content that has information not disinformation or misinformation, is more important than ever to that generation. So we really do need to push for [the Media Bill to pass] and I’m sure government agree with us on that.”
Mahon was joined at the press briefing by Channel 4 chair Ian Cheshire, COO Jonathan Allan and chief content officer Ian Katz.
Allan said the summer months of 2023 had been slower for advertising than expected but there was optimism for August and the rest of the year. “June and July are not as good as we thought they would be,” he said. “So a little bit worse than expected. But they have been improving as we’ve gone through the months. We’ve seen quite a lot of late money come in and August is a bit better than we expected. We’re seeing advertisers and agencies saying Q4 should be much better.”
“But again, visibility is pretty opaque,” he added. “What we’re hearing from advertisers agencies is they’re approving money quite late.”
The executive committee – made of Mahon, Allan and Katz – were also quizzed about their salaries and bonuses given the rocky financial outlook that has led to the network canceling shows and freezing commissions.
Mahon’s salary is £615,000 per annum, Allan’s is £510,000 and Katz’s £429,000.
Mahon pointed out the trio had declined to take a pay rise and a bonus equivalent to 50% of their salaries, instead opting for 25% “because we felt we should be more in line with the rest of the staff,” said Mahon. Due to a decline in advertising, that 25% bonus has now also been deferred “indefinitely” but the team wouldn’t comment on whether or not they planned to take it at a later stage.
Channel 4 chair Ian Cheshire said the bonuses were deserved. “The bonus payment goes through the remuneration committee against a clear set of targets,” he said. “And actually, as you’ve seen, the financial performance was actually probably better than we originally feared it might be and the creative performance has been excellent. And so we felt those numbers were justified.”
During a Q&A, the team were also quizzed on their commissioning strategy and whether there was too much reliance on old or poached brands like “Gogglebox,” which has now been running for 10 years, and “The Great British Bake Off” (known in the U.S. as “The Great British Baking Show”), which Channel 4 controversially nabbed from the BBC back in 2016.
“I just think that’s a duck that doesn’t fly,” Katz replied. “I mean, just look at the data. If you take this year for instance and you look at our top 20 shows in linear, half of them are new shows. If you look at our top 50 shows in digital more than half of them are quite new shows.”
Citing new hits including “The Piano,” “Late Night Lycett” and “Everyone Else Burns,” Katz said: “I just think that is a slightly lazy charge that isn’t in any way borne out by the data.”
Mahon also fielded a response to the BBC’s ongoing crisis regarding an unnamed high profile TV presenter currently embroiled in an underage sex photo scandal. Asked whether Mahon thought the BBC had a duty to name the man in question, she replied: “It’s not for me to comment on that but it doesn’t look easy does it.”
“The key thing for us is to make sure that our procedures would flag something like that to us,” she added.
