BBC and Channel 4 should ‘merge’ to survive, Sir Phil Redmond says

Published

3 months ago

August 20, 2025

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One of Britain’s most legendary TV dramatists, Sir Phil Redmond, is no stranger to tackling difficult issues on screen.

Courting controversy famously with his hard-hitting storylines on his children’s show Grange Hill for the BBC in 1978, before he switched over to Channel 4 to give it its two most prominent soaps, Brookside (1982) and later Hollyoaks (1995).

He’s been a pivotal figure at Channel 4 from its inception, widely considered to be a father to the channel.

While he’s been responsible for putting some of TV’s most impactful storylines to air for them – from the first lesbian kiss, to bodies buried under patios – off-screen nowadays, he’s equally radical about what should happen.

“Channel 4’s job in 1980 was to provide a platform for the voices, ideas, and people that weren’t able to break through into television. They did a fantastic job. I was part of that, and now it’s done.”

It’s not that he wants to kill off Channel 4 but – as broadcasting bosses gather for Edinburgh’s annual TV Festival – he believes they urgently should be talking about mergers.

A suggestion which goes down about as well as you might imagine, he says, when he brings it up with those at the top.

He laughs: “The people with the brains think it’s a good idea, the people who’ve got the expense accounts think it’s horrendous.”

A ‘struggling’ BBC trying to ‘survive’

With charter renewal talks under way to determine the BBC’s future funding, Sir Phil says “there’s only one question, and that is what’s going to happen to the BBC?”

“We’ve got two public sector broadcasters – the BBC and Channel 4 – both owned by the government, by us as the taxpayers, and what they’re trying to do now is survive, right?

“No bureaucracy ever deconstructs itself… the BBC is struggling… Channel 4 has got about a billion quid coming in a year. If you mix that, all the transmissions, all the back office stuff, all the technical stuff, all that cash… you can keep that kind of coterie of expertise on youth programming and then say ‘don’t worry about the money, just go out and do what you used to do, upset people!’.”

How feasible would that be?

Redmond claims, practically, you could pull it off in a week – “we could do it now, it’s very simple, it’s all about keyboards and switches”.

But the screenwriter admits that winning people over mentally to his way of thinking would take a few years of persuading.

As for his thoughts on what could replace the BBC licence fee, he says charging people to download BBC apps on their phones seems like an obvious source of income.

“There are 25 million licences and roughly 90 million mobile phones. If you put a small levy on each mobile phone, you could reduce the actual cost of the licence fee right down, and then it could just be tagged on to VAT.

“Those parts are just moving the tax system around a bit. [then] you wouldn’t have to worry about all the criminality and single mothers being thrown in jail, all this kind of nonsense.”

‘Subsidising through streaming is not the answer’

Earlier this year, Peter Kosminsky, the director of historical drama Wolf Hall, suggested a levy on UK streaming revenues could fund more high-end British TV on the BBC.

Sir Phil describes that as “a sign of desperation”.

“If you can’t actually survive within your own economic basis, you shouldn’t be doing it.

“I don’t think top slicing or subsidising one aspect of the business is the answer, you have to just look at the whole thing as a totality.”

Since selling his production company, Mersey Television, two decades ago, much of his current work has focused on acting as an ambassador for the culture and creative industries.

Although he’s taken a step away from television, he admits he’s disappointed by how risk-averse programme makers appear to have become.

“Dare I say it? There needs to be an intellectual foundation to it all.”

TV’s ‘missing a trick’

He believes TV bosses are too scared of being fined by Ofcom, and that’s meant soaps are not going as far as they should.

“The benefits [system], you know, immigration, all these things are really relevant subjects for drama to bring out all the arguments, the conflicts.

“The majority of the people know the benefits system is broken, that it needs to be fixed because they see themselves living on their estate with a 10 or 12-year-old car and then there’s someone else down the road who knows how to fill a form in, and he’s driving around in a £65k BMW, right? Those debates would be really great to bring out on TV, they’re missing a trick.”

While some of TV’s biggest executives are slated to speak at the Edinburgh Television Festival, Redmond is not convinced they will be open to listening.

“They will go where the perceived wisdom is as to where the industry is going. The fact that the industry is taking a wrong turn, we really need somebody else to come along and go ‘Oi!'”

When I ask if that could be him, he laughs. Cue dramatic music and closing credits. As plot twists go, the idea of one of TV’s most radical voices making a boardroom comeback to stir the pot, realistic or not, is at the very least food for thought for the industry.

Edinburgh TV Festival runs from 19 – 22 August.

Entertainment

Half of novelists fear AI will replace them entirely, survey finds

Published

8 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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Half of novelists fear AI will replace them entirely, survey finds

The novel has survived the industrial revolution, radio, television, and the internet. Now it’s facing artificial intelligence – and novelists are worried.

Half (51%) fear that they will be replaced by AI entirely, according to a new survey, even though for the most part they don’t use the technology themselves.

More immediately, 85% say they think their future income will be negatively impacted by AI, and 39% claim their finances have already taken a hit.

Tracy Chevalier, the bestselling author of Girl With A Pearl Earring and The Glassmaker, shares that concern.

“I worry that a book industry driven mainly by profit will be tempted to use AI more and more to generate books,” she said in response to the survey.

“If it is cheaper to produce novels using AI (no advance or royalties to pay to authors, quicker production, retainment of copyright), publishers will almost inevitably choose to publish them.

“And if they are priced cheaper than ‘human made’ books, readers are likely to buy them, the way we buy machine-made jumpers rather than the more expensive hand-knitted ones.”

Why authors are so worried

The University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy asked 258 published novelists and 74 industry insiders how AI is viewed and used in the world of British fiction.

Alongside existential fears about the wholesale replacement of the novel, many authors reported a loss of income from AI, which they attributed to “competition from AI-generated books and the loss of jobs which provide supplementary streams of income, such as copywriting”.

Some respondents reported finding “rip-off AI-generated imitations” of their own books, as well books “written under their name which they haven’t produced”.

Last year, the Authors Guild warned that “the growing access to AI is driving a new surge of low-quality sham ‘books’ on Amazon”, which has limited the number of publications per day on its Kindle self-publishing platform to combat the influx of AI-generated books.

The median income for a novelist is currently £7,000 and many make ends meet by doing related work, such as audiobook narration, copywriting or ghost-writing.

These tasks, authors feared, were already being supplanted by AI, although little evidence was provided for this claim, which was not possible to verify independently.

Copyright was also a big concern, with 59% of novelists reporting that they knew their work had been used to train AI models.

Of these, 99% said they did not give permission and 100% said they were not remunerated for this use.

Earlier this year, AI firm Anthropic agreed to pay authors $1.5bn (£1.2bn) to settle a lawsuit which claimed the company stole their work.

The judge in the US court case ruled that Anthropic had downloaded more than seven million digital copies of books it “knew had been pirated” and ordered the firm to pay authors compensation.

However, the judge sided with Anthropic over the question of copyright, saying that the AI model was doing something akin to when a human reads a book to inspire new work, rather than simply copying.

Most novelists – 67% – never used it for creative work, although a few said they found it very useful for speeding up drafting or editing.

One case study featured in the report is Lizbeth Crawford, a novelist in multiple genres, including fantasy and romance. She describes working with AI as a writing partner, using it to spot plot holes and trim adjectives.

“Lizbeth used to write about one novel per year, but now she can do three per year, and her target is five,” notes the author of the report, Dr Clementine Collett.

Is there a role for government?

Despite this, the report’s foreword urges the government to slow down the spread of AI by strengthening copyright law to protect authors and other creatives.

The government has proposed making an exception to UK copyright law for “text and data mining”, which might make authors and other copyright holders opt out to stop their work being used to train AI models.

“That approach prioritises access to data for the world’s technology companies at the cost to the UK’s own creative industries,” writes Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.

“It is both bad economics and a betrayal of the very cultural assets of British soft power.”

A government spokesperson said: “Throughout this process we have, and always will, put the interests of the UK’s citizens and businesses first.

“We’ve always been clear on the need to work with both the creative industries and AI sector to drive AI innovation and ensure robust protections for creators.

“We are bringing together both British and global companies, alongside voices beyond the AI and creative sectors, to ensure we can capture the broadest possible range of expert views as we consider next steps.”

Entertainment

Princess of Wales says her children were ‘very sad’ to miss Paddington at Royal Variety Performance

Published

11 hours ago

November 20, 2025

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Princess of Wales says her children were 'very sad' to miss Paddington at Royal Variety Performance

The Princess of Wales has admitted her children were “very sad” to miss the Royal Variety Performance in London, which she and the Prince of Wales attended.

Prince William and Kate made their first appearance at the event since her recovery from cancer.

Wednesday’s red carpet show at the Royal Albert Hall was headlined by the cast of Paddington The Musical.

After arriving and being presented with posies by nine-year-old twins Emelia and Olivia Edwards, the family of staff at a care home for entertainment industry workers, Kate asked if they were fans of Paddington Bear.

The princess, wearing a green velvet gown, then told the girls that her children were “very sad” not to attend the show and added she had to tell them children were not allowed to go.

“My kiddies were very sad, we’re going to have to keep it a big secret that I saw you guys,” she said.

“They were very sad not to be joining us.”

It is the sixth time William and Kate have attended the annual charity event.

When Olivia told the prince, wearing a tuxedo, her favourite singer was Billie Eilish, he replied she had good taste.

He said: “It’s very nice to see you both. You’re very smiley, you two.”

The royals were also greeted on the red carpet by ITV board members and representatives from the Royal Variety Charity, of which the King is the royal patron.

The Paddington cast were set to take to the stage on Wednesday evening, while pop star Jessie J and Grammy award-winning singer Laufey were also expected to perform.

Held annually, the Royal Variety Performance was first staged in 1912 for King George V and Queen Mary in support of the charity, which helps those working in the entertainment industry.

Ahead of the show, its executive producer Giles Cooper said the charity was “thrilled” the prince and princess would “once again attend the Royal Variety Performance”.

Mr Cooper, also chairman of the charity, added: “This annual great British institution, viewed by a worldwide TV audience of over 150 million, continues to be a crucial fundraising event supporting people in all areas of performance, either on or off stage.

“In this pressurised world of working in the entertainment industry, our mental health initiative, started in 2024, has been a lifeline for many who are experiencing issues such as anxiety, depression or addiction.”

On Tuesday, the princess called on businesses to value “time and tenderness just as much as productivity and success” in her first speech since she was diagnosed with cancer at the start of 2024.

Speaking at the Future Workforce Summit, Kate told 80 business leaders: “Every one of you interacts with your own environment; a home, a family, a business, a workforce, a community.

“These are the ecosystems that you yourselves help to weave. Imagine a world where each of these environments were built on valuing time and tenderness just as much as productivity and success.

“As business leaders, you will face the daily challenge of finding the balance between profitability and having a positive impact. But the two are not, and should not be incompatible.”

Entertainment

Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sells for £180m at auction, a record for modern art

Published

23 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sells for £180m at auction, a record for modern art

A painting that helped save the life of its Jewish subject during the Holocaust has become the most expensive piece of modern art and the second most expensive painting ever sold at auction.

The Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer, by Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, was bought for $236.4m (£180m) by an unnamed buyer after a 20-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday.

Its sale price beat the previous record for 20th-century art set by Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, a portrait of Marilyn Monroe bought for $195m (£148m) in 2022.

The most expensive painting ever sold at auction was Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which fetched $450m (£342m) in 2017, Christie’s said on its website.

Sotheby’s said on X the price for the Klimt was “astonishing”, making the piece “the most valuable work of modern art ever sold at auction”.

The portrait, which Klimt worked on between 1914 and 1916, depicts the daughter of one of Vienna’s wealthiest families wearing an East Asian emperor’s cloak.

Evaded fire and Nazi looters

Measuring 1.8m (6ft), the colourful piece, which was completed in 1916, illustrates the Lederer family’s life of luxury before Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938.

It was kept separate from other Klimt paintings that burned in a fire at an Austrian castle.

It also escaped being looted by the Nazis, who plundered the Lederer art collection.

They left only the family portraits, which they held to be “too Jewish” to be worth stealing, according to the National Gallery of Canada, where the painting was previously on loan.

Father lie saved her life

To save her own life, Elisabeth Lederer made up a story that Klimt, who was not Jewish and died in 1918, was her father.

It helped that the artist spent years working meticulously on her portrait.

She convinced the Nazis to give her a document stating that she descended from Klimt, which allowed her to live safely in Vienna until her death from illness in 1944.

The painting, which is one of two full-length portraits by the Austrian artist that remain privately owned, was part of the collection of billionaire Leonard A Lauder, heir to the Estée Lauder cosmetics empire, who died this year.

Five Klimt pieces from Lauder’s collection sold at the auction for a total of $392m (£298m), which also included pieces by Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse and Edvard Munch, Sotheby’s said.

An 18-carat-gold toilet by Maurizio Cattelan – the provocative Italian artist known for taping a banana to a wall – sold for a reported $12.1m (£9.2m).

The fully-functioning toilet, one of two he created in 2016 satirising superwealth, was stolen while on display at Blenheim Palace, the country manor where Winston Churchill was born, in 2019.

Two men were convicted of the theft, but it’s unclear what they did with the loo.

Investigators believe it was likely broken up and melted down.