Channel 4 privatisation to begin amid criticism from MPs and industry

theguardian.com:

Ministers will formally start the process of privatising Channel 4 on Thursday – despite widespread opposition from the British media industry, the broadcaster’s current management, and a large number of Conservative MPs.

The government insists that the publicly owned channel needs to be sold off, but there are doubts over whether they have the political support required to pass the necessary legislation. Ministers will also finally publish the conclusions of a 60,000-strong public consultation on the sale, with most comments expected to be against privatisation.

The announcement will be made as part of a range of legislative measures that will change the British media industry, including proposals to require broadcasters to make “distinctively British” programmes rather than show set in “non-specific locations, with an international cast, communicating in US English”.

Among the new media policies due to be confirmed in parliament on Thursday are a series of reforms designed to boost the UK’s public service broadcasters – which consist of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C.

The law on televising “crown jewel” sporting events could also be changed to cover streaming platforms. This could ensure Britons can watch all Olympics events for free, potentially undoing the recent rights deal with US media company Discovery, which reduced the BBC’s coverage and forced viewers to pay if they wanted to watch streams of all the events.

Other measures, which will be detailed in full in a white paper on Thursday, include:

Regulating the content on streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, giving the public the ability complain about offensive or inaccurate programmes in the same way they can already complain about