{"id":120132,"date":"2025-05-21T15:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T15:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120132\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T15:34:14","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T15:34:14","slug":"channel-4-executive-pay-rockets-amid-content-spend-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/120132\/","title":{"rendered":"Channel 4 Executive Pay Rockets Amid Content Spend Cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChannel 4<\/a> executive pay increased by nearly a third last year, despite the UK commercial broadcaster slashing content spend and jobs.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe network behind The Great British Bake Off and Gogglebox had a steady year in 2024, with revenue inching up 1% to \u00a31.04B ($1.39B) and its pre-tax deficit being reduced by \u00a350M to \u00a32M.<\/p>\n

\n\tChannel 4 rewarded its top team with pay packets totalling nearly \u00a32.9M last year, which was an increase of 32% on 2023 and the second-highest level in 15 years, per the company\u2019s annual report.<\/p>\n

\n\tOutgoing CEO Alex Mahon<\/a>\u2018s earnings rocketed 44% to \u00a31.3M, including a \u00a3544,000 bonus, which was more than double her variable pay in 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time, Channel 4\u2019s total content spend stood at \u00a3643M, which was down 3% year-on-year and was at its lowest level since the pandemic turbulence of 2020.<\/p>\n

\n\tChannel 4 said 2024 was a \u201cchallenging\u201d year, in which it was forced to make \u201ctough but necessary\u201d decisions to cut costs. This included making around 200 employees redundant.<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked by Deadline how Channel 4 justified increased executive pay amid belt-tightening, interim chair Dawn Airey said the top team did \u201cextremely well\u201d to grow revenue, including a 30% increase in digital sales to \u00a3306M.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe saw a massive restructure that took costs out of the business to ensure that we had the performance that we did, and the amount of money spent on the schedule was still extremely significant,\u201d she added. \u201cThat resulted in very good bonuses being paid for the year that are absolutely justified because this team did an extraordinary job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChannel 4 content chief Ian Katz pointed to a strong year of ratings, claiming that the network had the \u201cbest overall viewing performance\u201d of any commercial broadcaster in the UK.<\/p>\n

\n\tChannel 4 boasted a record 1.8B streaming views in 2023 (up 13%), while 39% of the state-owned company\u2019s revenue came from non-linear sources. The plan is to get this up to 50% by 2030.<\/p>\n

\n\tMahon said: \u201cIn 2024, Channel 4 showed how powerfully our public service model can evolve and thrive in a changing world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChannel 4 published its annual report against the backdrop of executive upheaval, with CEO Mahon following chair Ian Cheshire out of the exit door. Media regulator Ofcom is currently searching for Channel 4\u2019s next chair, who in turn is expected to play a pivotal role in appointing a new CEO.<\/p>\n

\n\tAirey paid tribute to Mahon during a press conference on Wednesday. She said Mahon had been \u201cquite an exceptional\u201d CEO and leaves the company in \u201creally strong health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAlongside the annual report, Channel 4 unveiled plans to take majority stakes in third-party production companies<\/a> as part of its move into in-house production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Channel 4 executive pay increased by nearly a third last year, despite the UK commercial broadcaster slashing content…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[30187,411,77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-120132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-alex-mahon","9":"tag-channel-4","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114546558307285658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}