The government would not allow publicly-owned Channel 4 to be sold to “hostile countries” such as Russia or China, a former culture secretary told Sky News.
John Whittingdale, who was culture secretary from 2015 to 2016, said there was a “strong case” for selling Channel 4 after current Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries confirmed on Monday the government has decided to push ahead with plans to privatise the channel.
Ms Dorries said she had concluded “government ownership is holding Channel 4 back from competing against streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon”.
Mr Whittingdale said it is a “completely different world” from when the channel was launched in 1982, when there were only three other channels and no streaming platforms with “lots of money”.
Addressing concerns Channel 4 could be sold to a private company based outside the UK, the Conservative MP for Maldon said overseas ownership “can bring real benefits” as seen in Sky being bought by American company Comcast.
“So we shouldn’t be frightened of that,” he said.
However, he said not all countries’ offers would be welcomed, especially “hostile countries,” and he named Russia and China – but said the government would not let that happen.
“There are countries who I think we’ll be much less happy if they were to acquire strategic assets,” he said.
“That’s something which the government actually legislated on in the last session of parliament where we identified specific sectors which were a strategic importance to the UK, and gave the government power to step in to prevent them being acquired by countries who we see as hostile.
“Without wishing to single out particular countries, obviously Russian ownership or indeed Chinese ownership might well be something the government would want to step in and stop.”
Source : skynews
