Battle to be new home of C4 starts
THE battle to become the new home of Channel 4 has officially kicked off.
The broadcaster is looking to open three new regional hubs including a new national headquarters - in the biggest shake-up of the company in its 25-year history.
On Monday Alex Mahon, chief executive of Channel 4 , announced how the bidding process would work from a presentation at the broadcaster’s Westminster headquarters.
And Coventry already looks to have a firm footing.
The host city would need to have a working population of 200,000 Coventry’s population stood at 316,900 in 2011. Travel time to London of between 2-3 hours - It takes just over an hour on the fastest route to get to the capital from Coventry.
Jonathan Allan, chief commercial officer for Channel 4, said these were “guidelines not gates”.
He added: “It’s up to you to convince us.”
He also added that the “general attractiveness” of the region would be important.
Channel 4 has now revealed a much more detailed timescale of how the process will unfold.
Shortlisting of the submitted bids will take place by the end of May.
The Channel 4 team will then visit shortlisted cities in June for a presentation.
Once all cities have been visited, hopefully by the end of June, the team will follow up with discussions before selecting final locations by the end of September.
The final decision on the location of the new hubs and HQ will be made and announced in October.
Coventry is one of four Midlands locations in a joint bid submitted by West Midlands Mayor Andy Street - along with Birmingham, Solihull and the Black Country.
Although work will now start in earnest on the bid, there has already been much planning in the region.
The Friargate development has been named as the obvious destination for the broadcaster in the city as it could provide purpose-built office space, at a low cost, next to Coventry rail station.
Other potential sites for a new Channel 4 base in the region include an area near the planned high speed rail station at Curzon Street, Birmingham city centre, and near the proposed new rail station in Solihull, near the NEC.
A government study last year concluded that moving Channel 4 to the West Midlands would create 3,412 jobs in the region and grow the region’s economy by £235 million.
Other regions which have submitted proposals include: Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Nottingham, Plymouth, Sheffield, Stafford, Stoke and York.
Mr Allan, who is running the process, said the national HQ and hubs would boost representation of voices across the UK.
He said 300 jobs would be created across the three hubs by the end of 2019, including those who commission content.
He said he expected that number to rise to around 3,000 in the future.
When asked if Channel 4 would prefer to move north or south of London, Mr Allen said: “We have a completely open mind about where we go.”
The initiative, called ‘4 All in the UK,’ will be the biggest structural change in the broadcaster’s 35-year history.
Although it will not sell its London headquarters in Westminster, the broadcaster has said it will open three new “creative hubs” in the nations and regions.
The largest would be a new national HQ. Mr Allan said the HQ would be a “broad base” centre to include a TV studio where programmes could be filmed as well as live broadcasting.
He added that the building would need to be fully accessible but that he was “looking for the most economic solution”.
He said that because building a studio is very expensive, the broadcaster would be willing to look at options where facilities may already exist.
But he added that TV studios can be built “fairly cost-effectively these days”, so it “depends what you’ve got and how you want to pitch it”.
He also said the smaller hubs would not only be used by Channel 4 staff but as creative hubs in their own right, providing facilities for local people to collaborate with the broadcaster.