More drama, less news? Why ministers want to sell Channel 4 — and what it could mean for programmes | News

The government has announced plans to push ahead with a potential £1 billion sale of Channel 4, the 40-year-old public service broadcaster.

Here, we answer the big questions about the largest privatisation effort since the sale of Royal Mail in 2013.

Channel 4 has been owned by the government since it was established by Margaret Thatcher in 1982. Channel 4 is publicly owned, not publicly funded. It has a unique remit to reinvest its profits from advertising in innovative programming from the UK’s independent production sector.

Ministers argue, however, that the ownership model has become a “straitjacket” for Channel 4, preventing it from competing effectively with increasingly powerful streaming giants, including Netflix and Amazon. They said a commercial owner would enable Channel 4 to