Channel 4 reveals shortlist for new HQ and regional hubs

Channel 4 has announced the cities and regions that have been shortlisted to house its new national headquarters and two new creative hubs.

From more than 30 submissions, the UK broadcaster has narrowed down the choice to seven cities for consideration as a national headquarters or creative hub. A further six sites have been listed as potential creative hub only sites.

The national HQ or creative hub shortlist is Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Greater Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and the West Midlands.

The creative hub only list is Belfast, Brighton, Newcastle-Gateshead, Nottingham, Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent.

Each of the shortlisted cities will participate in a second stage pitching process, which will include Channel 4 visiting each city for a presentation and question and answer session. Channel 4 will select the final locations in October 2018.

“We’ve been incredibly impressed both by the number of pitches we received and by the high quality of the submissions – which has underlined the huge amount of creativity, innovation and talent right across the UK,” said Channel 4’s chief commercial officer, Jonathan Allan, who is leading the pitch process.

“However we have to move to a shortlist phase and, after careful consideration by the Channel 4 Executive team, we’ve selected 13 cities that are best able to meet our vision for our new hubs in the nations and regions.”

Channel 4 announced plans for its national headquarters and regional hubs in March, as part of the public service broadcaster’s biggest restructure in its 35-year history.

Channel 4’s new strategy will see content spend on ‘nations and regions’ (i.e. producers outside London) increase from the current 35% of total programming investment to 50% by 2023.

This represents a £250 million uptick and will mean the establishment of the new headquarters and two smaller creative hubs.

Channel 4’s current HQ on Horseferry Road in London will reduce its size, with office space there made available to nations and regions producers doing business in the capital.

Channel 4 said it will move to its new multi-site operating model in 2019.