Channel 4

1982–Present
Location

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
  • A default icon for a node which has no primary image

    Glen or Glenda

    film/video, 1953

    Probably the first ever transgender film: Glen or Glenda? (I Led Two Lives), made in 1954 soon after Christine Jorgensen's story became the world media's first representation of a person who had "changed sex". Wood, a cross dresser himself, was inspired by her story and called for tolerance with his sympathetic, if quirky portrayal of intersexuals, transsexuals and transvestites. this brilliantly bad move by Ed Wood defines postmodern transgender aesthetic sensibilities. Seriously. Boldly innovative in its use of found footage, the film requires voice-over narration to render intelligible its jarring visual discontinuities, making it a theory-head's wet dream that mocks the distinction between high art and garbage. The film's impassioned deference of sexual diversity makes it fun for all kinds of viewers.

  • A South Asian young adult woman lays on a bed with her head propped up by a pillow to support her reading of a novel. The bedroom is decorated with a large framed sepia photograph of a person positioned near her pillow and various personal items.

    Unishe April

    film/video, 1994

    Aditi loses her father when she is eight years old. Her mother Sorojini Gupta, was not at home when he died. Sorojini is a dancer who is away performing at the time of the incident.

  • A default icon for a node which has no primary image

    Thanks a Bunch Lord Ormrod

    film/video, 1996

    Pamela Hunt, who was born a man, challenges the validity of a 1970 ruling by Lord Ormrod that annulled a marriage and put transsexuals in legal limbo.