MARGARET Thatcher – the Prime Minister who gave Channel 4 the green light in the early 1980s, wanted to privatise the state-owned outlet, her memoirs reveal.
The woke world of overpaid media luvvies reacted with fury when it was revealed Boris Johnson was set to privatise Channel 4 after forty years of public ownership.
Channel 4 star Kirsty Allsopp, of Location Location Location fame, branded the move “utter twaddle” and claimed, “No true Conservative would sell Channel 4.”
She then falsely claimed: “Lady T will be spinning in her grave.”
“C4 was set up to foster the British film & TV industry and it has done that job admirably.”
“Any Tory MP who votes for this is a traitor to their party & country.”
Conservative MP Damian Green claimed that Thatcher “never made the mistake” of privatising the Channel, in a post on Twitter he wrote: “The sale of Channel 4 is politicians and civil servants thinking they know more about how to run a business than the people who run it.”
“Very unconservative. Mrs Thatcher, who created it, never made that mistake.”
Wrong.
Mrs Thatcher in fact wanted to privatise Channel 4 in the late 1980s but was blocked by doing so by what she described as a hostile media establishment.
They might be shocked to find out that it was Margaret Thatcher herself – a true revolutionary – who intentionally designed Channel 4 to be disruptive and to unleash a culture of entrepreneurial programming and production companies, with privatisation in mind.
In November 2007, when the network celebrated its 25th anniversary, a More4 documentary explored the groundbreaking disruptive early years.
Thanks to her forward-thinking modern Government, FilmFour disrupted the British film industry.
Thatcher gave producers and filmmakers such as Ken Loach, and Neil Jordan a platform. Jordan even said Channel 4 was “the best thing to happen to British cinema.”
“Some of the films were highly engaged in a socially political way … It was an interesting period, There hasn’t been such a good period since,” Jordan revealed in ‘Channel 4 at 25’ in 2007.
Film on Four gave birth to a new generation of filmmakers and gave a fresh perspective on eighties Britain.
One iconic 1980s Channel 4 film also promoted her entrepreneurial spirit.
Hanif Kureishi wrote My Beautiful Launderette – an early pro-LGBT film that broke the boundaries of race and sexuality.
Director Stephen Frears believed “No-body in their right mind would go to see a film about a gay Pakistani laundrette owner,” but he was wrong.
The film, which cost £650,000 to make in 1980s money, made a staggering £2.5 million at the box office. Proving that Channel 4 could be a commercial success even before the idea of ‘privatisation’ was realised.
Thatcher knew how successful privately-owned Channel 4 could be.
In her memoirs, after leaving office Mrs T revealed that in 1988, when she was considering axing the hated BBC licence fee, that Channel 4 would be better of privatised.
Charles Moore wrote in The Spectator this week: “On both subjects, she was defeated by what she calls ‘the monopolistic grip of the broadcasting establishment’. “
So there you have it, don’t always believe what you read on woke leftie media Twitter.