Channel 4 offers to sell London HQ under alternative plan to privatisation

theguardian.com:

Channel 4 has said it could sell its £100m London headquarters and almost double staff working outside the capital to become “northern-based” under a plan it hopes offers an attractive alternative to the government’s privatisation push.

Describing itself in the proposals as the “levelling up broadcaster”, it said it intended to increase spend on TV shows commissioned by production companies outside of London by hundreds of millions of pounds annually by 2030 in a move it estimated would create at least 3,000 jobs.

The broadcaster, which is state-owned but commercially funded, said the changes would mean the majority of its 800 staff would be based in locations including its “national headquarters” in Leeds, and hubs such as Glasgow, Bristol, Manchester and Birmingham, with the number of staff working outside London nearly doubling to 600 by 2025.

“Alongside this, we would streamline our presence in London by creating a new London base that reflects our new ways of working,” the broadcaster said in its plan, called 4: The Next Episode, which had been rejected by the government.

“As we embrace hybrid working, and reorient our focus away from London to the nations and regions – a reorientation intrinsic to our existence in public ownership – Channel 4 may require a different scale London base.”

The government eyed the £100m windfall of a potential sale of Channel 4’s headquarters in Victoria, central London, the last time it attempted to privatise the broadcaster but ultimately backed down.

Channel 4’s plan also includes the creation of a joint venture, with an external investor as a majority shareholder, to spend £200m annually on new content and ultimately boost its total programming budget from £700m to £1bn a year by 2030.

Oth