Television’s greatest crime is that it underestimates its public, says Channel 4’s head of drama David Aukin.

‘ ‘Dumbs down,’ I think is the term. I’m not suggesting Channel 4 is immune to that tendency, but its mandate ­ its responsibility ­ is to take risks.’

For Canadian film and television types, Britain’s Channel 4 needs little introduction. This September, Ken Loach’s Carla’s Song, True Blue, Brassed Off, Hollow Reed and David Mamet’s American Buffalo will join the ranks of Trainspotting, Secrets and Lies and The Madness of King George, as feature films financed through its Film on Four strand.

On the small screen, The Politician’s Wife, The Boys of St. Vincent, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush, Drop the Dead Donkey, The Dying Rooms, Baka-People of the Rain Forest, A Very British Coup and Traffik comprise a small piece of the drama and documentary productions delivered under Aukin’s auspices within the independent production-centric parameters of Channel 4, the only public broadcaster in the world existing without public subsidy.

This month, the Banff Television Festival pays homage to Channel 4, awarding it the prestigious Outstanding Achievement Award. ‘Its ability to innovate, to risk and to still find substantial and loyal audiences is an inspiration to broadcasters around the world,’ says festival president Pat Ferns.

Chief executive Michael Grade will make the Banff pilgrimage to accept the award, accompanying Channel 4’s usual bevy of commissioning editors for the last time. After nine tumultuous years at the helm, Grade, 53, is leaving to take over as chief executive of a large leisure company. Discos, bowling alleys and such, ‘a grown-up business as opposed to film and television which is all fun.’

In real life, it hasn’t been. Channel 4 has spent the better part of the decade fighting the government a la tvontario. In retrospect, Grade is most proud of the fact at that Channel 4 is more than holding its own.

‘We survived the ravages of the Margaret Thatcher privatization plan and the John Major privatization plan. We’ve come through it all and we’ve surprised everybody, with no compromises to the quality of Channel 4 and at no cost to the public coffers. We have become the great nursery for talent in the u.k., both for independent production and for broadcasting executives. Our people are all over television.’

Outside the stunning volume of its international awards for programming garnered over his term ­ everything from the Emmys to the British Medical Association Awards to the Prix Italia to the London Film Critics Circle Awards ­ Grade is leaving Channel 4 in a profit position, with none perhaps more pleased with the status quo than the independent production community.

In 1995, the most recent year-to-date available, Channel 4 invested £193.5 million commissioning 1,826 hours of first-run programming from independent producers. Financing streamed to 527 indie production companies. Some, like those producing comedy, dramatic and political series, score more than £1 million.

At the same time, the network drew net profit before tax and statutory levy of £128.1 million on advertising and sponsorship revenue of £448 million, an increase of 13.7% over 1994. Audience share is up marginally to 10.9% over the previous year’s 10.7% despite pressure from the bbc and an increasing number of satellite services. It ranks third amongst the 20-plus channel viewing options, behind itv and BBC1 and ahead of BBC2, Sky 1, Sky Sports and U.K. Gold.

Channel 4 is, as its tag line says, ‘Serving all of the people some of the time.’ Its anomaly stature in the international film and television production industry set it apart from its sister English-speaking public broadcasting entities, collectively in a state Grade calls ‘tragic.’

‘To see the erosion of the cultural values to which any nation aspires eroded by this constant cheese-paring is a tragedy for all the great public broadcasters. Once you lose it, you’ll never get it back.’

Background

With stats that would make the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council blanch, Channel 4 prompted 2,134 complaints to the Independent Television Committee in 1995, six to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission, and 140 to the Broadcasting Standards Council.

Of the pack, the greatest percentage of the grounded disgruntled shows a total of 13 upheld and seven partially upheld from the bsc, which monitors standards of taste and decency. The filings are in no small part prompted by Saturday late-night The Red Light Zone, a season of documentaries and shorts about sex and sex-related industries which on occasion spurs a great public outcry about Channel 4’s responsibilities as a public broadcaster.

As Aukin says, it g’es with the territory, territory established in 1982 when Channel 4 hit the terrestrial airwaves.

Under the 1981 Broadcasting Act, it was charged to cater to interests and tastes not served by Britain’s three other networks. In what was a pioneering concept at the time, it was also charged with not making its own programs. The then fledgling independent production industry grew up with Channel 4.

Very simply, ‘there wouldn’t be an independent production community without it,’ says Grade, who spent three years in the bbc executive echelons prior to his Channel 4 appointment.

‘It wouldn’t exist. The bbc and the itvs would have always produced in-house, with a lot of talk of how quality producers aren’t out there, the talent isn’t there. It was always my view at the bbc ­ one that didn’t go down too well ­ that we needed to be open whatever the talent was and however the talent wanted to work, and then we’d find it. It’s proven so at Channel 4 over and over again.’

From its inception through 1992, the station was funded by a subscription levied on the itv companies, in return for the right to sell airtime on Channel 4 in their own affiliate areas. The Channel Four Television Company was established in 1993, taking back the option to sell its own airtime and spawning an in-house sales, marketing and research team.

In addition to Channel 4 International, the service now runs several other subsidiaries including its own film distribution arm, 124 Facilities, which marks the digital studio and post-production facilities at head office, and Channel 4 Learning, which has taken over for the Educational Television Company for liaising with schools and distributing material to support the Channel 4 Schools service.

According to Aukin, taking Channel 4 from a subsidized service to a public service which relies solely on advertising revenues is one of Grade’s greatest achievements. ‘It took huge nerve and integrity to do that without compromising programming.’

Aukin says Grade’s other crowning achievement is his fostering the ‘lifeblood’ of Channel 4, which is the autonomy allowed its some 20 commissioning editors, all with their own budgets and a sense of ownership of part of the schedule.

‘It’s a completely idiosyncratic approach, a group of individuals, all of whom follow their own instincts and generate a multiplicity of views, which translates into the on-screen product. But making those parameters work means having the courage to trust the people who work for you, until they give reason not to. It’s an incredibly important thing and something Michael did instinctively. He’s a terrific delegator. I think he got quite bored which is why he left.’

Alternative niche

Grade almost agrees. The primary high he’s leaving behind is ‘the amazing buzz you get from finding a great show, from seeing great expectations met in the overnights the next day.’

Once enveloped in the programming minutia, Grade is hands-on with the three or four dramatic series a year Channel 4 nurtures, but says the nature of the executive level is that the advertisers, talent, politicians, regulators and the press absorb the day. ‘I kind of delegated my way out of the really fun bit, which is programming.’

While the rest of the world chases the mass eyeballs, Channel 4 targets the light tv watching audience, the younger, up-market audience at the mid to low end of the 25-to-54 demographic. Airtime is sold on a national and a regional basis, offering buys into six macro-regions of London, South Midlands, North, Scotland and Ulster.

The commissioning process is a bit of a dream for both the team of commissioning editors and the independent producers with which they do business. Operating under three groups, the Controller of Arts and Entertainment, the Controller of Factual Programmes, and the Head of Drama, editors have a budget and flexibility of time slots at their disposal.

If he or she likes an idea, development financing as in a script, treatment, or a research excursion is likely, or else they may go straight to commission. If Channel 4 commissions or cofinances a project, an agreed upon budget is established then a percentage of the total is added on as a production fee, profit for the company.

While it sounds ideal, Aukin says financing drama is as difficult on his side of The Pond as it is here, perhaps more so since Channel 4 isn’t chasing the international sale.

‘We can’t lay off the cost of drama around the world. Most of the drama we’re involved in, the subject matter and its treatment, is mostly alternative and wouldn’t appeal outside our market ­ Canada is maybe the difference, but a u.s. sale is usually out of the question. They bought Gulliver’s Travels last year and the only reason I could think that they’d done that is no one at nbc had actually read the script. I was wrong and they were excellent partners, but generally they consider our subject matter too contentious.’

Contentious or not, Channel 4’s fearless program treatment has long become its own reward. ‘We don’t have the biggest audience share but that there is a niche market out there is interesting. It’s enough to support the channel,’ says Aukin.

Feature film

The u.s., along with the rest of the English-speaking hemisphere, has been more receptive to its feature films.

Besides tv producers, Channel 4 translates its mandate to support British filmmakers and encourages the development of new talent into financial support for what is ever elusive in the Canadian market ­ grassroots features which are both a commercial and a critical success.

The 1995 telecast of Four Weddings and a Funeral garnered 12 million viewers, its number one rated program of the year and an example of the Film on Four strand prototype which sees features garner audiences and critical attention before their telly premieres.

But Aukin makes clear that the box office scores are a byproduct of a wider directive.

‘It’s often our failures which are as important as our successes. We financed a film a few years back which was neither a commercial nor much of an artistic success, but it was built by a first-time filmmaker and it was the kind of film no one expected Channel 4 to be interested in. Certainly I wanted to make it clear that I was keen to develop a new generation of filmmakers, and that message was heard loud and clear.’

This year Channel 4 projects investing £22 million into its Film on Four strand, a number contingent on the reconciliation of its subsidy arrangement. The funding formula ­ the amount Channel 4 must levy the itv companies ­ is the station’s priority challenge and its number one lobby effort for more than two years.

While the itv companies continue to argue their own services and regional programming are dependent on the Channel 4 subsidy, Channel 4 argues the group as a whole is fatter than ever before and that levies should be at zero before the end of this year.

Should it win the battle with the British regulatory authority and be relieved of its responsibility to subsidize the itv companies, Channel 4 will commit to financing 24 feature films a year by 1999, a total of more than £100 million for feature films from 1996 to 1999, including £7 million to script and concept development.

According to Aukin, feature film initiatives are easier to facilitate because international partners are more accessible. The successes on its slate have afforded them the means to maintain creative control

‘We don’t compromise ­ if you compromise, why bother? We’ve been fortunate because we now have a reputation and some people ­ not all people, but some people ­ take us on our terms. We like our money to count.’

Leaving 10-year bbc veteran Michael Jackson with substantive sh’es to fill, Grade says Channel 4 needs to change, to continue reinventing itself. ‘But the emphasis has to be on domestic production. The new player, Channel 5, won’t do it. They’ve put all their money into American series and movies. There’s nothing different about it. We’re ahead because we’re already different and the channel universe is expanding. Many said our public service remit was an albatross. We said then and say now that it is probably our biggest commercial asset.’