Channel 4 could scrap the subscription on its premium FilmFour service and put the movie channel onto Freeview next year.
Such a move, which would see the FilmFour go from 400,000 subscription homes to 15m homes with digital TV, is being considered by the Channel 4 chief executive, Andy Duncan, but no decision has been presented to the board.
Mr Duncan is mulling several options about how to use the channel's Freeview capacity but believes there is a gap for a film channel even though ITV2 and ITV3 frequently screen movies.
If Channel 4 decides to make changes it must approach Sky and negotiate to take FilmFour off the premium platform.
The most likely option is to find a slot on Freeview for the channel, which shows a diet of British classics and modern American and European films.
Films on the channel are screened uninterrupted by advertising, but that could change if the subscription, which costs £7 a month for Sky viewers, is removed.
Seven years after its launch, FilmFour has started to make a modest profit but Channel 4 has decided it cannot make a vast amount of money from the service under its subscription model.
If the channel moves to Freeview Channel 4 might introduce advertising to make up for the revenue losses.
Digital channel E4 moved from subscription to Freeview in May and was rewarded with a doubling of its audience share, thanks in part to Big Brother.
------
Okay, it's early days and it's just one idea that's under consideration, but if it did happen, this could be a very different FilmFour to the one we know and (very, very occasionally) love. Yes, it would be free, but at what cost? Films broken up by adverts and no longer 'as the director intended'? Even more mainstream films? Greater censorship perhaps? Or is this perhaps the shot in the arm that the channel needs...?
In theory, by going Freeview, FilmFour needn't neccessarily be damaged but I imagine I'm not the only one thinking it will...though then again, it's 'loss of direction' last year was also painful to behold, insulting to pay for, and practically got rid of most reasons for suscribers to actually suscribe. Keeping the advert free runnings could still be a major attraction point if they have the tenacity to at least try it, loosing that would loose most of the advantages that many have been prepared to pay for all these years.
Is it possible to run a channel with what to many is 'niche' programming and make a profit or rather a healthy profit?....open to question I guess .....most suscribers would I think have not put profitability of the channel as amongst their priorities other than how it affected the programming in relation to what they think the channel should be showing.
On occaission C4 has been adventurous and often successfully so, I think it at least owes the public the chance, should it go down the Freeview path, to keep the advert free runtimes, uncut showings and programming that allows exposure to lesser shown films. If they can't get that to be financially viable then consider change not change prior to giving it the chance. The big problem I see here is that if they keep something like the current format or better still, the format that FilmFour had shortly after it's birth, and it isn't seen as successful, then it is changed and still isn't successful, it's going to be pretty hard to go back to being a subscription model.
I'd love to be wrong on this but I can't see a non-subscription FilmFour being financially viable without adverts during the films. We can hope that this might be kept down to one or two intermissions only, but even that would be very unwelcome.
I'm not sure I even understand why FilmFour has to make anything more than a 'modest profit'. After all, isn't Channel 4 a public service broadcaster rather than a money-grabbing business? Or would increased profit be used to increase the size and quality of FilmFour's library? So potentially, as long as any such additional money wasn't spent exclusively on mainstream garbage, this could be positive thing.
I assume that +1 and Weekly would bite the dust if all this was to happen, not that any of us Telewest subscribers would notice. Or could there be a potential for a premium package that contained the extra channels and an alternative main FilmFour channel? It could largely share the same library as a Freeview FilmFour, thus greatly limiting costs, but concentrate on showing the World/extreme/independent stuff, and what's more, show them without adverts or (if this were to be a problem on Freeview) without increased censorship. I wonder how many current, or even former, subscribers would be prepared to pay for a premium package if the standard channel was free?
Originally posted by DrBoto: I wonder how many current, or even former, subscribers would be prepared to pay for a premium package if the standard channel was free?
I think that very much depends on what was really on offer. Even on Freeview Film Four as it was say last year wasn't an attractive proposition to actually bother to watch. I doubt Film Four can cater other than to a larger or smaller niche but a niche non the less and the moment it stops catering to that niche it hasn't really got anything. I will pay to see a film even if I know it's going to be on C4 in a couple of months time because it is shown without adverts, but with adverts I certainly wouldn't but then I might also choose not to watch it on either but start renting DVD's.
