A senior executive at Netflix is among the contenders vying to become the next boss of Channel 4, the state-owned broadcaster.

Sky News has learnt that Emma Lloyd, the streaming giant’s vice-president, partnerships, in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is one of a handful of media executives shortlisted to replace Alex Mahon as Channel 4’s chief executive.

Ms Lloyd, whose previous employers included Sky, the immediate parent company of Sky News, also served on the board of Ocado Group, from which she stepped down this month after nine years as a non-executive director.

She is understood to be a serious contender to take the helm at Channel 4, with other candidates understood to include Jonathan Allan, the interim chief executive who has also been its chief commercial officer and chief operating officer.

The identities of others involved in the recruitment process was unclear this weekend.

The appointment of a successor to Ms Mahon, Channel 4’s long-serving boss, comes at an important time for the company, and the broader public service broadcasting sector.

Recruitment to the board of Channel 4 is technically led by Ofcom, the media regulator, in agreement with the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, although the process to land a new chief executive is being steered from within the company.

In September, Geoff Cooper, who chairs the online electrical goods retailer AO, was named Channel 4’s next chairman.

He replaced Sir Ian Cheshire, the former Kingfisher boss, who held the role for a single three-year term.

Channel 4 saw off the prospect of privatisation under the last Conservative government, with Ms Mahon a particularly vocal opponent of the move.

Nevertheless, Channel 4, which is funded by advertising revenues, faces significant financial challenges amid shifting – and in many cases waning – consumption of traditional television channels.

In the aftermath of a sale of the company being abandoned, its board last year unveiled Fast Forward, a five-year strategy designed to “elevate its impact across the UK and stand out in a world of global entertainment conglomerates and social media giants”.

“While getting ourselves into the right shape for the future is without doubt the right action to take, it does involve making difficult decisions,” Ms Mahon said at the time.

“I am very sad that some of our excellent colleagues will lose their jobs because of the changes ahead.

“But the reality of the rapid downshift in the UK economy and advertising market demand that we must change structurally.

“As we shift our centre of gravity from linear to digital our proposals will focus cost reductions on legacy activity.”

Ms Mahon’s departure earlier this year saw her quit to run Superstruct, a music festival business owned by private equity backers.

In recent weeks, her name has been linked with the BBC director-general’s post, which is soon to be vacated by Tim Davie.

Mr Davie announced this month that he would step down amid fierce criticism of the Corporation’s handling of a misleadingly edited speech made by President Donald Trump, which was included in an edition of the current affairs programme last year.

The public service broadcasting arena will also undergo significant change if a prospective bid by Sky for the television arm of ITV progresses to a definitive transaction.

Talks between the two companies emerged earlier this month.

In addition to the corporate developments in British broadcasting, the government has also confirmed a Sky News report that a search for a successor to Lord Grade, the Ofcom chairman, is under way.

On Saturday, Netflix declined to comment on Ms Lloyd’s behalf.

The government is lining up bankers to conduct a review of options for Britain’s embattled steel industry amid calls for ministers to orchestrate mergers between some of the sector’s biggest players.

Sky News has learnt that Evercore, the independent investment bank which now employs George Osborne, the former chancellor, was expected to be appointed in the coming weeks to oversee a strategic review of the sector.

If its appointment is confirmed, Evercore will report its findings to Peter Kyle, the business secretary, and UK Government Investments (UKGI), the Whitehall agency which manages taxpayers’ interests in a range of companies, including the Post Office and Channel 4.

The talks with Evercore come as the steel industry contends with the impact of President Trump’s tariff war and the prospect of retaliatory measures from the European Union.

The move to recruit bankers for a key review of Britain’s struggling steel sector also comes during a period when the government has significant financial exposure to all of the country’s three largest steel producers.

Last year, ministers agreed to provide £500m in grant funding to Tata Steel, the Indian company, to install an electric arc furnace at its Port Talbot steelworks in Wales.

The new facility is expected to be operational in 2027, but has been bitterly opposed by trade unions infuriated that the new funding was effectively used to drive through thousands of redundancies at the plant.

In April, the then business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, moved to seize control of British Steel after its Chinese owner, Jingye Group, threatened to close the UK’s last-remaining blast furnaces at its site in Scunthorpe.

The move sparked a diplomatic row with Beijing, with Jingye considering various legal options in an attempt to secure compensation for its shares in the company.

Last month, ministers disclosed that the cost of taking control of British Steel had risen to £235m, in addition to a £600m bill for preserving its future in 2019 and 2020 when the company fell into insolvency under its previous owner.

The government’s move prevented the immediate loss of more than 3,000 jobs, although there remain questions about the company’s viability as a standalone entity.

Some advisers believe that a combination of British Steel with other industry players, including Sheffield Forgemasters, which is also in government control, will be a necessary step to preserving steelmaking capacity in the UK.

People familiar with the plans said that a newspaper report this month suggesting that bankers were being recruited by the government to sell British Steel was “wrong”.

“The UK government doesn’t own British Steel; it’s hard to sell an asset you do own,” they said.

Nevertheless, it remains conceivable that the government will at some stage be able to determine the future ownership of the industry’s second-largest company, amid recent suggestions that Beijing could be willing to cede Jingye’s claim to the company in return for Sir Keir Starmer’s approval of a controversial new Chinese embassy in Central London.

“We continue to work with Jingye to find a pragmatic, realistic solution for the future of British Steel,” Chris McDonald, the industry minister, said in a statement to parliament this month.

“Our long-term aspiration for the company will require co-investment with the private sector to enable modernisation and decarbonisation, safeguard taxpayers’ money and retain steelmaking in Scunthorpe.”

Britain’s third-largest steelmaker, Speciality Steels UK (SSUK), is also effectively in government hands, having been placed into compulsory liquidation during the summer.

The business was part of Liberty Steel, which is owned by GFG, the metals empire of businessman Sanjeev Gupta.

In August, a judge declared SSUK as “hopelessly insolvent”, with a special manager now overseeing an auction of the business, which employs about 1,500 people.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said: “This government sees a bright and sustainable future for steelmaking in the UK, and we’ll set out our long-term vision for the sector in our upcoming Steel Strategy.”

Sources said that that strategy was likely to be published either next month or early in the new year.

Rachel Reeves has been accused of failing to “support the great British pub” as she promised in the budget, with owners facing skyrocketing business rates bills.

In her speech in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the chancellor said she was backing small businesses by introducing “permanently lower tax rates for over 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties – the lowest tax rates since 1991”.

But while the government gave itself the powers to discount the business rates bills for high street businesses through legislation earlier this year, the chancellor only implemented a reduction of a quarter of what the government is able to, and she is being accused of imposing a “stealth tax”.

It has left small retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses questioning whether their businesses will be viable beyond April next year.

A Treasury spokesperson said: “We’re protecting pubs, restaurants and cafes with the budget’s £4.3bn support package – capping bill rises so a typical independent pub will pay around £4,800 less next year than they otherwise would have.

“This comes on top of cutting licensing costs to help more venues offer pavement drinks and al fresco dining, maintaining our cut to alcohol duty on draught pints, and capping corporation tax.”

Business rates, which are a tax on commercial properties in England and Wales, are calculated through a complex formula of the value of the property, assessed by a government agency every three years, combined with a national “multiplier” set by the Treasury, giving a final cash amount.

Over the last few years, small businesses were given business rates relief of 75% to support them over the COVID pandemic, and Ms Reeves reduced that to 40% at last year’s budget.

The idea was that at the budget this year, the chancellor would remove that remaining relief in favour of reforming the business rates system to compensate for that drop, while shifting the tax burden on to much bigger businesses and companies like Amazon with lots of warehouse space.

However, the chancellor only announced a 5p in the pound discount for small retail, hospitality, and leisure businesses, rather than the assumed 20p drop which the government gave itself the powers to implement, and which trade bodies had been lobbying for.

On top of that, small businesses have seen the government-assessed value of their property increase dramatically, which wipes out the discount, and sees their business rates bill shoot far above what they had previously been paying.

One pub owner near Hull, Sam Caroll, has seen the assessed value of one of his two properties increase from £67,000 to £110,000 in just three years – a 64% increase.

He told Sky News that there is a “continual question” of business viability, and while he thinks they can “adapt” in the short term, “there will be a tipping point at some point”. Even at the moment, packing out their pubs seven nights a week, “it’s difficult for us to break even”, he said.

There will be a discount for small businesses to transition to the higher business rates level, but by year three, almost the full amount is expected to be payable, and Mr Carroll described it as “getting f***** slowly, instead of getting f***** overnight”.

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Sean Hughes, who owns multiple hospitality venues in St Albans, has also seen vast increases in the assessed value of his properties, and was sharply critical of the transitional arrangements the government is implementing.

He told Sky News: “Fundamental business rate reform was promised and we have total chaos. If [the system] was fair, why would they need transitional relief periods?”

A spokesperson of the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which assesses the value of commercial properties for business rates purposes, told Sky News: “At the last revaluation, some sectors including hospitality were significantly affected by the pandemic, which resulted in much lower rateable values than they would have seen otherwise. Businesses that have now seen a recovery in trade are also likely to see an increase in their rateable value.”

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However, Sky News has seen evidence of businesses whose assessed value did not decrease when assessed during the pandemic, but actually rose, and has risen dramatically this year.

Data compiled by the Pubs Advisory Service, shows that the number of pubs in the UK has decreased by nearly 5% in three years, but the average value of the properties has risen by an average of 36.82% per pub.

And analysis by UK Hospitality, the trade body that represents hospitality businesses, has found that over the next three years, the average pub will pay an extra £12,900 in business rates, even with the transitional arrangements, while an average hotel will see its bill soar by £205,200.

The body adds that by 2028/29, an average pub’s business rates will have increased by 76% and an average hotel’s by 115%, compared to 16% for a distribution warehouse like the ones the web giants use.

It’s not just the business rates rise that is worrying owners – it is the increase in employers’ national insurance implemented at the last budget, the increase in energy bills over the last few years, and the rise in the minimum wage, particularly for young people.

With the budget set to squeeze disposal income, there is little room for price increases to make up the shortfall either.

In a letter to the chancellor on Friday, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said small business owners “have been pushed to tears as they’re hit with the bombshell of higher business rates bills”, noting that “the government has chosen not to use the full powers it gave itself to throw high streets a lifeline”.

She added that businesses had been promised “permanently lower business rates”, but it appears the government has “broken yet another promise, by imposing a stealth tax not just on people, but on treasured high street businesses too”, and called on ministers to “throw our high streets and Britain’s hospitality sector a lifeline”.

Conservative shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith published his own analysis of the government’s budget measures on Friday morning, that found they will “hammer British pubs”.

Of the chancellor, he said: “She pretended in her budget speech to be supportive, whilst the true detail is that a combination of rate revaluations and scrapping reliefs will leave most pubs paying thousands of pounds more than they cannot afford.”

Kate Nicholls, Chair of UKHospitality, said in a statement: “The government promised in its manifesto that it would level the playing field between the high street and online giants. The plan in the budget to achieve this is quickly unravelling, and will deliver the exact opposite.”

She said they “repeatedly warned the Treasury” of the impending impacted of the value reassessment, but nonetheless, hospitality businesses are now facing “eye-watering increases”.

She added: “We agree with its reforms to deliver permanently lower business rates for hospitality and we appreciate the package of transitional relief, but its current proposal is not delivering lower bills. A 20p discount for hospitality would. We urge the chancellor to revisit.”