Pact: C4 sale will take £4.2bn out of indie sector

Selling Channel 4 will take £4.2bn out of the indie sector in a decade, with annual spend set to fall by 75% to £107m per year, Pact has warned.

The indie body has revised its earlier forecast of a £3.7bn loss after factoring in the government’s white paper, which proposed that C4 would be mandated to spend only a quarter of its budget with third-party suppliers.

Pact bases its annual spend calculation on C4’s pre-pandemic spend of £430m a year and expects most of the £107m to be spent with qualifying indies.

With fewer shows to sell, indies will also lose out on secondary sales, which Pact warns could have to £100m by 2032.

Pact also fears that C4 will cut its nations and regions spend, which currently accounts for 55% of main channel spend, to the required minimum 35%.