C4 unstable on the high-wire as balancing act gets difficult

Is Channel 4 becoming too commercial? With Channel 5 preparing for launch, and the satellite channels growing ever stronger, it’s a question that will be raised increasingly in the months ahead.

Its rivals and critics answer “Yes”. ITV accuses it of foresaking its public-service remit, and filling its schedules with repeats and American imports. BBC2’s Michael Jackson attacks programmes like The Girlie Show for “sapping C4’s originality, in favour of demographics – in particular young, lager-drinking, upwardly mobile men”.

Others claim it cynically presents itself as the “sex and shocking” channel, boosting ratings by stirring up tabloid headlines with series such as The Red Light Zone and incest-motivated murder in Brookside. Even the Independent Television Commission, in its end-of-term review, warned of “a sharp increase in the amount of repeats”, and says “more original and first-run material could be provided”.

Too commercial? Not according to agency media buyers. Those filing out of last week’s summer programme launch were less than enthused by series on gays in the movies, women’s role in the workplace, black gospel music and – in a late-night zone – all things Latin American.

It is C4’s curse – and strength – that it has to be two-faced, balancing its need to be different with its need to be commercial. It is a trick it has pulled off with remarkable success in the three years since it had to pay its way, steadily increasing its advertising revenue and audience share, while winning a shelf-load of awards, from BAFTAs to Oscars. Whether it can maintain this virtuous circle must be in doubt – but as C5 gets set to launch, it is in good shape. This year, the channel will turn its “premium” status into hard cash. “Gone are the days when C4’s airtime was sold at a double-digit discount compared with ITV,” wrote chief executive Michael Grade in the recent annual report. Now, far from selling at a discount, it regularly commands a price premium.

One way it has achieved this is by increasing its share of commercial minutage – reducing ITV’s advantage in bulk ratings. Though its share took a dip in March, and the cable and satellite channels have boosted their audience, C4 is more than holding its own. One way it has done this is by those special tabloid-stirring “nights” and “weekends”.

The first of these, around Valentine’s Day three years ago, was “The Love Weekend”, which I recall was promoted by mailing condoms and massage oil to impressionable hacks. Measured against the following four weekends, it increased total viewing by 22 per cent, with a 40 per cent boost among 16 to 34-year-olds.

The Pot Night last year was less successful, with viewing down by 38 per cent, but the three special weekends last autumn all boosted audiences. The Sci-Fi Weekend pushed them up by 70 per cent, with 16 to 34-year-olds up 96 per cent; Fright Night up by 37 per cent; and Soap Night up by 14 per cent, with 16 to 34-year-olds up 39 per cent.

Another way C4 has helped its cause is by convincing some advertisers of the value of its programme environment. For example, Häagen-Dazs chose to put its Heat commercial only in films and only on C4, trading both on the traditional link between ice-cream and the cinema, and C4’s younger, more upmarket audience. Miller’s Pilsner tapped into the Friday-night-is-lager-night mood of programmes like Eurotrash and Crapston Villas.

To capitalise on that environment, C4 has now produced a stylish tape showing how ad-vertising feeds off, and builds on, films and programmes.

Starting with clips from its own Four Weddings And A Funeral and the de Beers diamond commercial made specifically for it, the tape moves through a succession of memorable juxtapositions: the Volvo whirlwind ad – inspired by a C4 Dispatches programmes; a Co-operative Bank ad – plus documentary footage of the torture regimes they don’t invest in; and the Wrangler would-be cowboys commercial – plus Billy Crystal in a spookily similar movie.

Had it been shown on the channel’s soon-to-be scrapped arts strand, Without Walls, it might have been presented as an indictment of these commercial companies, cynically filching artistic images to boost their profits. Introduced by the urbane Stewart Butterfield it seems far from sinister, though some advertisers – let alone programme-makers – might question the notion of not knowing where the programmes end and the ads begin.

Butterfield, C4’s director of sales and marketing, does not trumpet the achievements of the past four years. He was always quietly confident the channel could pay its way, despite forecasts of disaster from other quarters. Yet he knows the competition for audiences and revenue can only get tougher.

“The audience is very selective and you can’t get away with fillers any more, because every hour of the schedule is now competitive.” It is the same with marketing, with ITV starting to promote button 3, and the imminent launch of C5. C4 is preparing a new on-screen look for the autumn, but it’s keeping the famous 4 logo. “This autumn will be the war of the numbers and it would be crazy to change it,” says Butterfield.

But while ITV moves to establish its double-branding (knowing it will be the first target for C5’s salesmen), C4 is less concerned. Butterfield says: “I can’t see anyone trying to take our ground. Whatever C5 will be, it won’t be C4.”