Channel 4 Television and British Film Culture: an assessment of the broadcaster's film policy and programming, and its impact on British film culture.

In 2007 Channel 4's 25th birthday was marked by a number of reappraisals of its broadcasting legacy. Yet its innovation in film sponsorship & programming scarcely received mention. At a time when Channel 4's future as a public service broadcaster is again in the media spotlight, this project directs attention specifically to its unique contribution to film culture in Britain. Following the completion of their AHRC-funded project 'British Cinema in the 1970s' (on which Dr Justin Smith was Co-investigator), film & television historians at the University of Portsmouth are ideally placed to embark on this new research which adopts an original historical approach to the relations between television & film.

In the wake of the 1977 Annan Report, Channel 4's charter made the promotion of film part of its working remit. Film on 4 broke new ground in directly funding feature film production for television broadcast & selective cinema release. But Channel 4's coverage of film culture (from magazine programmes to avant-garde seasons, from cutting-edge documentary to experimental animation) went further still in realising its ambition to promote diversity & minority interests. It also established a distribution arm (Film 4 International). From 1998 to 2006, it pioneered a subscription film service on its digital network (Film4) - another innovative enterprise in the context of a rapidly changing global television marketplace.

This 4-year project assesses Channel 4's impact on British film culture over 25 years. It will consist of 2 elements. The substantive part of the study, at the University of Portsmouth, will comprise 2 full-time PhDs, a major conference & website. The first doctoral project will research film policy, commissioning, programming & scheduling; it will provide the institutional & economic context & map the extent of Channel 4's broadcast coverage of film. The second PhD will attend to Channel 4's sponsorship of original feature film. It will survey films produced over the period & focus upon a number of case studies (incoporating their production histories, financial packages, distribution & exhibition arrangements & critical reception) in order to assess the cultural & aesthetic influence of Channel 4's films. Channel 4 has agreed to assist the project in facilitating interviews with current & former commissioning editors for Film. The conference (in yr2) will invite academics, TV & film industry personnel, & policy-makers, to debate the responsibilities & approaches of public service broadcasting to film culture in Britain, from the advent of Channel 4 to emerging internet film download environments. The conference proceedings will be published on a UoP website will which also showcase the project's work to a wider public. The final project outcome (in yr4) will be a monograph by the Principal Investigator (PI), Dr Justin Smith, entitled Channel 4 and British film culture.

The second, subsidiary, element of this project, sub-contracted to the Research Executive (RE) at the British Universities Film & Video Council, will be to produce a database of Channel 4's weekly Press Information Packs (1982-2004) under an agreement with Channel 4. Reporting to the PI, the RE, alongside the PhD students, will develop methods of interrogating this data primarily in order to gather information about film programming & broadcast film reviews. But, with agreed input from Channel 4, they will also reflect on the methodology used & demonstrate the wider potential of this digital resource for future media researchers. The database & full research context will be published (in yr3) & maintained on the BUFVC's website for the benefit of the UK HE community after the main project is completed. The project's findings, via book & web publications, will reach an audience across & beyond academia. The conference will provide a forum for opinion formers & policy makers to debate the role of public service broadcasters in film culture.

Beyond the direct academic benefits of this project, there are a number of potential additional benefits, to a wider constituency, in terms of impact, which derive both from the currency of our project focus and from our collaboration with the British Universities Film & Video Council and Channel 4. The first of these is evident in the intention to invite to the conference in September of year 2, participants (including potential keynote speakers) from Channel 4, the BBC and ITV, the Film Council, Ofcom, government and journalists. Our contact at Channel 4 (Rosie Gleeson, the broadcaster's archivist) is facilitating negotiations with their current Head of Drama Tessa Ross to open proceedings. The purpose of seeking industry and parliamentary involvement is to broaden and update the scope of our survey of Channel 4's contribution to British film culture by taking into account related topical issues such as internet broadcasting and film. Delegates might consider the continuing success of Channel 4 in film sponsorship and international co-production and distribution (most notably the recent, Oscar-winning, Slumdog Millionaire) in the context of the outcome of current debates about the Channel's funding position, in the wake of Lord Carter's Digital Britain report and Ofcom's deliberations. What will its future financial status mean for its public service remit generally, and its policy towards film in particular? The conference may consider its influence in the realm of film sponsorship and distribution upon other rivals (including the BBC), and wider policy implications in a rapidly changing television marketplace. To this extent, our conference will provide a forum and an agenda for industry personnel, opinion-formers and policy-makers to air their views. Thus, the project's central investigation would provide a stimulus, in terms of impact, to industry personnel and policy-makers; and, via the project website and media publicity, bring it to wider public attention.

The second area of impact comes from the BUFVC's digitisation of Channel 4's Press Information Packs (1982-2004) which the project fund-holder at UoP will commission. Under the terms of an agreement between Channel 4 and BUFVC of September 2007, the BUFVC can only publish this data for the use of the UK HE community. However, Channel 4 is very interested in being engaged with the digitisation project and has already expressed a willingness to participate in and comment on the beta-testing phase of development. Whilst Channel 4, since 2004, has published its own weekly Press Packs online, the format in which this information now exists has none of the data complexity or interrogative potential which the BUFVC will bring to the 1982-2004 dataset. A possible future impact, therefore, could reside in collaboration (within 3 years of project completion) between the BUFVC and Channel 4 over technological convergence, since the broadcaster is seeking to consolidate its archival and information capabilities due to financial constraints.

Thirdly, the PI is party to a framework agreement of July 2007 between the University of Portsmouth and the BUFVC in the interests of pursuing mutually beneficial research collaborations. The BUFVC has a well-established track record in meta-data handling and web publication in the fields of film and television and brings considerable technical and intellectual expertise to this sub-contracted service. The co-investigators at the University of Portsmouth and the BUFVC's Reseach Executive have met with Channel 4's archivist, securing the broadcaster's support for the project and willingness to co-operate with the investigation. At this stage we are confident of the productive potential of this three-way relationship for the purposes of the present project and its possible future impact, which might pave the way for future collaborati