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The boss of Channel 4 has said that its management would have been quickly notified about the sort of complaint made to the BBC over the behaviour of its suspended presenter, describing it as a “very difficult situation” for the national broadcaster.
“We get an email every day with a summary of what’s coming in through inquiries,” Alex Mahon told the Financial Times. “And there’s an escalation process to HR of that nature. So, as confident as I can be, that would have escalated to me in all of these situations.”
BBC bosses have been criticised for their handling of allegations that a top presenter paid tens of thousands of pounds to a young person for sexually explicit photos.
The BBC complaint system failed to flag the case to senior management or talk to the presenter until last Thursday — seven weeks after the initial complaint, according to the broadcaster’s timeline of events.
Channel 4 on Wednesday revealed that revenues fell for the broadcaster by 2 per cent to £1.1bn owing to a drop in advertising on its traditional TV channels. This was in part offset by growth in digital advertising, which now makes up over a fifth of its total revenue.
The media group made a surplus of £20mn for the year, a drop from £101mn last year, which will be reinvested into content and strategic objectives.
Channel 4 has cut back several of its programmes owing to tighter financial conditions, said Mahon. But she noted that she would like to continue to broadcast the Andrew Neil Show, which has been rumoured to be under threat.
This time last year the future of Channel 4 was in doubt as the government weighed up whether to privatise or sell the broadcaster. Mahon said the group was now able to concentrate on its future, developing its digital reach and focusing more on reaching younger audiences.
But Mahon said that the future of the public sector broadcasting was still under threat unless the government ensured that its media bill became law this year to safeguard the prominence of British channels on online platforms and TVs.
She said: “The media bill is urgently needed . . . to make sure that Britain’s public service media is findable particularly for young people and is prominent in their lives.”
Mahon added that Channel 4, like “the BBC, ITV, can’t compete with the money that YouTube or Netflix can spend on those prominent positions. So we do need the bill to make sure that public service content is found there from a societal point of view.”
