MacTaggart speech highlights Ofcom's C4 dilemma

by Colin Grimshaw Media Week 31-Aug-06

Edinburgh TV comment So hat's off to Charles Allen who went out with a bang with the best MacTaggart speech in most people's memory. It was entertaining, witty, and put this year's Ofcom review of Channel 4's remit and funding at the forefront of TV's agenda - and all in the presence of Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell.

Did her warm embrace of Allen signal her recognition, perhaps even her
support, of the points he made?

Allen made the expected defence of his tenure, outrageously claiming
that ITV's hands were tied behind its back by PSB and had a gun held to

its head by CRR.

But his points about the BBC's creative stranglehold over its in-house
production and the threat to C4 from having no in-house production have
already stimulated a debate.

More controversially, his questioning of Ofcom's lack of control over a
publicly-funded C4 is timely. 4Radio may well provide the digital kick
up the backside that radio needs, but Allen is right to question why
there was no public debate in advance of its launch.

Futhermore, as Luke Johnson conceded when he was quizzed on the PSB
issue, it is C4 executives who judge whether the channel is meeting its
public service remit, opaque as it is.

Johnson - an entrepreneurial capitalist - seemed embarrassed by his
chief executive's plea for £100m of annual public funding.

So he should when C4 is profiting hugely from CRR and creamed off £70m of ad revenue from ITV last year.

C4 cannot be both a ratings-chasing commercial animal and a PSB
operator. Ofcom now has to decide which it should be.

- Colin Grimshaw is the deputy editor of Media Week.