socialmedian: After years of misrule, Lord Burns finds C4 back where it started

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After years of misrule, Lord Burns finds C4 back where it started

Source: The Guardian

Nov 09, 2009

Summary

Channel 4's new chairman Lord Burns can now do what his predecessors failed to do – invest commercially to secure C4's future in the digital age

Whatever the reservations expressed over Lord Burns's appointment – too old, too white, too establishment, etc – it is hard not to feel a sense of genuine relief. After all, Burns may bring Channel 4 some much-needed leadership and credibility after five years under Luke Johnson and Andy Duncan that have left the channel, some great programmes notwithstanding, politically isolated and strategically bereft.

The appointment of Johnson as chairman six years ago was seen as a bold move by the then Ofcom chief executive Stephen (now Lord) Carter. You can see how combining Johnson, the free-market freewheeler, with the then C4 chief executive Mark Thompson, the heavyweight public service broadcaster, must have looked like a wizard wheeze. And had Thompson stayed at C4, so it might have proved. Unfortunately, but entirely predictably, Thompson went to the BBC and Johnson named Andy Duncan, formerly of BBC marketing and Unilev

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