来源：《卫报》
原文刊登日期：2021年6月23日
文章结构
Channel 4的历史与现状。
英国政府考虑私有化Channel 4，作者指出私有化不合理。
结论。
To sensible Conservatives, Channel 4 should seem a bargain. Owned by the state, it costs the taxpayer precisely nothing. It generates income from advertising – both from linear TV and streaming – that it ploughs back into Britain’s lively independent production sector, without the need for it to make a profit for shareholders. It was Margaret Thatcher’s government that brought it to fruition, after the seeds of the channel were sown by Lord Annan’s 1977 report into the future of broadcasting. It was designed to stimulate independent production beyond the BBC and ITV, reflecting the full diversity of Britain’s talent – and so it did. Some would say it has lost much of the innovative spirit that animated it in the 1980s. Kinder critics might say that the radicalism is still there, even if it is harder to detect amid the commercial programming that supports its more cutting-edge work. Certainly, Channel 4 remains the originator of brilliant television.
对明智的保守党人来说，第4频道应该物超所值。它归国家所有，纳税人完全不用花钱。它从传统电视和流媒体的广告中获得收入，然后再投入英国活跃的独立制作部门，而不需要为股东盈利。在安南勋爵1977年关于广播未来的报告播下了这个频道的种子之后，正是撒切尔政府使这个频道开花结果。它旨在刺激BBC和ITV之外的独立制作，充分体现英国人才的多样性——它确实做到了。有人会说，它已经失去了上世纪80年代的那种创新精神。更温和的批评者可能会说，激进主义仍然存在，即使在支持其更尖端作品的商业节目中更难察觉。当然，第四频道仍然是优秀电视的鼻祖。
Now the government is talking of privatising Channel 4. The ostensible reason is to help it achieve greater scale in a broadcasting world increasingly dominated by the giant US streaming services. But this argument is weak and wrong-headed. For a start it is unclear what, exactly, the government would be selling. Channel 4 is a publisher of broadcast material; it does not own its shows and is not some asset-rich operation whose sale would raise significant amounts for the public purse. Privatisation is certainly not the kind of “help” that those running Channel 4 desire, or say they need – especially after a pandemic year in which it defied gloomy predictions. In the process of establishing a secondary headquarters in Leeds, the channel says it is likely to hit its target of spending half its budget outside London in 2021, two years ahead of schedule. The broadcaster is, then, achieving some of the government’s policy of spreading investment beyond London.
现在政府正在讨论将第四频道私有化。表面上看，此举是为了帮助它在美国流媒体服务巨头日益主导的广播世界实现更大规模。但这种说法既无说服力，也是错误的。首先，我们还不清楚政府到底会出售什么。第四频道是广播节目的播放渠道；它并不拥的版权，也不是什么资产丰富的公司，可以通过出售资产为公共财政筹集大量资金。私有化当然不是第四频道经营者所希望或需要的那种“帮助”——尤其是在经历了大流行之年、第四频道的经营战胜悲观预测之后。第四频道表示，在利兹建立二级总部的过程中，它很可能在2021年实现将一半预算用于伦敦以外地区的目标，比计划提前两年。这样一来，第四频道就实现了政府将投资扩展到伦敦以外地区的一些政策。
An intriguing contrast is presented by the government’s attitude to science and its announcement this week of a centralised body, the Science and Technology Council, charged with “setting bold visions, acting with speed and taking risks”. Reframe Channel 4 in broadly analogous terms and you could easily see it as a smart, low-cost form of venture capital fund. What Channel 4 needs from the government is not a pointless, ideologically driven privatisation, but encouragement to become yet more innovative and radical in its experimentation with the form, craft and content of television.
有趣的对比是政府对科学的态度。本周，英国政府宣布成立新的中央机构——科学和技术委员会，职责是“制定大胆的愿景，迅速采取行动，敢于冒险”。用大致类似的术语重新定义第四频道，你很容易就会把它看作是一种聪明的、低成本的风险投资基金。第四频道需要政府进行的不是毫无意义的、由意识形态驱动的私有化，而是鼓励其在电视形式、技术和内容方面进行更加创新和激进的试验。