Channel 4 to remain in London HQ

Just been reported now:

Big win for Channel 4 who have negotiated an almighty fudge in order to - basically - more or less stay in London.

The argument in government was over whether forcing C4 to leave London would have bankrupted & closed the Channel altogether. https://t.co/XIw02xNiqc

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) March 8, 2018

Will add my thoughts on this later.

Of particular note to us as pres fans:

Channel 4 News will be broadcast from two bases - one in London and one new base outside London

— Jonathan Walker (@jonwalker121) March 8, 2018

So they've negotiated from having the whole entirety of Channel 4 Headquarters to be relocated outside the capital, to having a second news studio located outside the capital to jointly share news output of just 6.5 hours of weekly airtime, and a small part of it's HQ moving with it.

That's quite the negotiation that has happened there.....

Considering the standard of negotiators this government has I'm sure they could have come away with a much better deal. Looks like they're leaving somewhere but wanting to stay there with all the benefits of being there, so just duplicating a load of unnecessary things that have significant cost implications purely for political reasons.

That position seems very familiar...

Fill story here:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/mar/08/channel-4-to-move-hundreds-of-staff-but-keep-london-hq

It's a good job these Government officials are negotiating Brexit...

Something I've often wondered - does Channel 4's region/nations quota include any programming made in Wales? Considering technically Channel 4 wasn't intended for Wales as we had S4C instead?

I think it does now but think the quota is combined with the other nations.

"Channel 4 would open three new “creative hubs” in the nations and regions, with the largest to be a new national HQ"

Considering the UK is made up of four nations... does this mean that the new national HQ will be outside of England?

Unless Wales is not considered by Channel 4 as one of their nations or regions of course... in which case the new HQ could also be in England with the other two creative hubs being in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I wonder what they mean by "creative hub" anyway... seeing as they mainly commission content. The only things they create themselves are their promos/trails/marketing/social media.

Cardiff Council initially wrote to the Culture Secretary trying to sell Cardiff as a location for C4's new HQ.

Ever wondered why traditionally most independent production companies are based in the soho/fitzrovia area of London? That's because Channel 4 started in Charlotte Street and so all the new companies supplying it gravitated to the area.


I suspect that's the idea behind these 'hubs', Channel 4 provide the hub, to attract the creative industry to those areas. It's not channel 4 creating things, they'll commission from their 4 bases

Also as the article says the plan for Horseferry Road is to rent out office space to production companies, presumably that will be the case in the other hubs