[Commlist] CFP: Channel 4 then and now

CALL FOR PAPERS
CHANNEL 4 THEN AND NOW
23-4 September 2022

Channel 4’s first programmes were broadcast on 2 November 1982, 40 years 
ago.
Royal Holloway University of London’s School of Performance and Digital 
Arts, and Centre for the History of Television Culture and Production 
are planning a conference for 23 and 24 September 2020 to assess Channel 
4 on its 40th birthday. The conference will take place at the BFI 
Southbank in conjunction with the British Film Institute’s planned 
season of programmes from the first decade of Channel 4. We hope that 
sessions will also be streamed.

Channel 4 was set up by Act of Parliament as a public service 
broadcaster with a remit for “innovation in the form and content of 
programmes” and a commitment to “minority audiences” of all kinds. 
Channel 4 continues to be committed to acting as a 
publisher-broadcaster. Channel 4 has a unique, though frequently 
disputed, status as a publicly owned broadcasting company with a 
minority cultural remit and financed entirely from its own commercial 
activities.
Channel 4 has changed the nature of television both in the UK and around 
the world. Throughout its 40 year history, Channel 4 has managed, with 
varying degrees of success, to negotiate the tension between its 
aspirations to act as a force for change and its financing through 
advertising revenue.
We are calling for papers on all aspects of Channel 4’s output, 
organisation and cultural influence, not restricted to its first decade. 
We expect papers on programming, industry and cultural issues across the 
whole span of Channel 4’s history.

We are particularly interested in:
•	the many innovations and experiments in programming across all genres,
•	the changing approaches to minority and diversity issues •	approaches 
to sexuality and the body, including sexual identities and practices, 
the visual representation of nudity and sexual intercourse, anatomical 
variations and different physical abilities
•	Channel 4 news and its contribution to changing the landscape of TV 
news in the UK
•	Channel 4’s relationship with independent production
•	The relationship with nations and regions, including the relationship 
between Channel 4 and S4C
•	The history and impact of Channel 4 film initiatives
•	Channel 4 as an institution, both organisational and physical, 
including relocation outside London •	The attempts made by Channel 4 to 
negotiate the changing media landscape
•	What future Channel 4 has in the age of global streaming, SVOD and AVOD
•	Channel 4 as a subject of political and cultural controversy

The shape of the eventual conference, which will be open to the public, 
will be determined by the papers submitted. In principle we are thinking 
of devoting one day to ‘Channel 4 Then’ and the other to ‘Channel 4 
Now’. We hope that each day will be rounded off by a suitable early 
evening event, and that the in-person conference will also be live 
streamed to allow remote attendance.

Please send short proposals for individual or group presentations to 
(Channel4conference /at/ rhul.ac.uk) By Friday April 15 2022

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