The hope was that 4Radio would breathe some life back into radio and bring new and exciting commissions into the region.
You can understand why; read their Next on 4 report and it’ll tell you that 28 different production companies have delivered more than 316 hours of content and that’s just to the channel4radio.com website.
Fantastic. With most radio opportunities for indies coming from the BBC, a new kid on the block with speech and music-based stations should have given the sector a big boost.
They revived The Tube. They did it in Salford and made it their flagship show.
 Tube presenters
Fortunately we didn’t cock it up too much - well I don’t think so, we got good reviews, even in the posh papers and we helped launch the careers of Eskiimo (now The Ting Tings) and Elliot Minor. So what’s happened?
Well, the obvious reason is cash. Saving £10m in next year’s budget is a pretty big thing, particularly with the economy as it is.
Then there’s Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) - remember this was all just after Big Brother and that racism story. C4 argued that a move into radio would show how much they were committed to PSB and therefore protect their income from the licence fee.
Others suggested that if they could afford to risk a venture into radio, why did they need the cash?
Internally there had also been a struggle and earlier this year, senior executives requested a revision of the business plan; and then the launch date kept being delayed.
For anyone who thought the announcement was a surprise, it’s not, the writing has been on the wall for some time, even as early as 2007 when the 4Digital Group won the DAB Multiplex.
For a start a number of DAB stations shut down and now there’s only one national, commercial, digital station that wasn’t already available on analogue - Planet Rock.
From a commissioning front, the gung-ho attitude of 2007 where everything was great and all ideas would be considered, because this was ‘a rival to the BBC’ changed. Substantially.
Budgets were revised, but then The Tube budget was spectacular when it comes to radio - and to be honest some television.
 Risky programming
Future
But does this mean the end of digital radio? Definitely not, but it may spell the end for 4 Digital, although as yet there’s been no comment from the minority shareholders of the group, Bauer Radio, BSkyB, the Carphone Warehouse Group, UBC Media and UTV Radio.
It may mean Ofcom opens up the 12 year licence again, so National Grid Wireless and its partners GCap, BBC, Digital One, RTL, Premier Christian Radio, Somethin’ Else, Fun Radio and Colourful can relaunch their bid.
Sadly, none of these options are likely to give indies the same feeling of optimism, as for a time it seemed that Channel 4 had gone back to its roots, the time when they had a new plaything and were happy to experiment.
That would have been great for production companies and even better for radio. If you hadn't guessed, Stephen Chapman produced The Tube for Channel 4 Radio. Something to add? Then leave a comment below or email us now.
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