Four To Merge?

Channel 4 may face being merged into a new, bigger broadcaster under plans drawn up for the Government's groundbreaking Digital Britain review.
Channel 4 - which already no longer employs its own playout staff following their transfer to Red Bee Media in August last year - when more than 100 staff joined Red Bee following months of talks between the companies, BECTU and the staff - could become a 'super' broadcaster that would be a "wider entity" than C4.
By 2012 it is anticipated that the new organisation would also provide news programmes as an alternative to the BBC.
The proposal is a similar one to the earlier idea of a merged C4 and Five.
It was recently resurrected by Five owner RTL and backed by BBC Director General Mark Thompson but is just one option in a draft of the report leaked to the Financial Times.
However, the leak of the document would imply that the Communications, Broadcasting and Technology Minister, Stephen Carter, is unlikely to recommend that C4 gets the help it needs to plug a £150m funding gap it faces by 2012, since any such 'merger' would involve a re-funding package - making more public money unnecessary.
The report will also argue PSB 'plurality' can only be provided by an institution big enough to be commercially viable which implies that it would not be with C4 in its current form - especially given the mini funding 'crisis' already outlined under current arrangements.
(BMcC/JM)