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Channel 4
1982–Present

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Location

England

London, England

Alternate names

Channel Four

Description

Channel 4 is free-to-air and freely available to all of the UK. We have the UK’s biggest free streaming service, plus a network of 12 television channels. Since Channel 4 was created in 1982, it has been at the centre of national conversations and a catalyst for the creation of a world-beating production sector in the UK. Our purpose is to create change through entertainment. We do this by representing unheard voices, challenging with purpose and reinventing entertainment. Our unique model – commercially-funded but publicly-owned – means that we’re able to offer independent and distinctive, universal content reflecting the interests of different communities across the UK. As a publisher-broadcaster, Channel 4 commissions UK content from the independent production sector and currently works with around 300 creative companies across the UK every year. We have the youngest-skewing public service channel in the UK – and we reach more 16-34-year-olds than any other commercial broadcaster across streaming and TV. Through Film4, we back creative excellence and invest in British filmmakers, to huge critical acclaim – Film4 films have produced 144 Oscar nominations and 37 wins in our 40-year history. Channel 4’s board ensures that we fulfil our remit and deliver our financial responsibilities.

Channel 4. “About Channel 4.” Accessed February 5, 2024. https://www.channel4.com/corporate/about-4/who-we-are/about-channel-4.
Works in catalogue
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    Broadcast on Channel 4 in the spring of 1989, Kris Clarke's documentary is the first ever programme broadcast in the UK about transsexualism by a transsexual filmmaker and finally took up the issues from the unique perspective of transgendered people instead of showing us as a deviant minority or victims of psychopathology under an expert's microscope. Discussion of sex reassignment is treated straightforwardly, taken out of the realm of horror film scenes and tabloid sensationalism and shown to be directly relevant to social health and well-being and identity. Featured are "Fascinating Aida" star Adele Anderson, who was 'outed' by the press, bus driver Stephanie Anne Lloyd, who doesn't want any special accommodations from society, feminist and Labour counsellor Rachel Webb who would like to return to lorry driving but knows she would be discriminated against as a woman in that profession and Mark Rees, an early activist who went to the European Court of Human Rights to try to get his birth certificate altered to read boy. Eight years later Press for Change is still fighting the same battles in the European courts.

  • Pointing Percy

    film/video, 1994

    A film about the rites and rituals , taboos and etiquette surrounding male toilet habits. Made as part of the Men's Room series for Channel 4.

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    For Love or Money

    film/video, 1999

    A tender, alternative contemporary love story.