Media journalist Maggie Brown is to write a new volume of her influential history of Channel 4, A Licence to Be Different – The Story of Channel 4

Covering the years 2008-16, it is planned to be a key record and source of information about the public service broadcaster.

The aim is to follow the same style as the first book:  a strong narrative thread, insights and original research, including interviews with key current players. 

Volume one, which covered the first 25 years of the broadcaster’s history, is already widely used by all branches of media, academics and the broadcasting industry at large.

The new book will be an independent study, not an authorised corporate history. Brown will have supervised access to the archives of Channel 4, which is facilitating the project.

The entry point will be the decision to end Big Brother and the major challenges, financial and creative, that posed for Channel 4. It will examine the inheritance from the Luke Johnson/Andy Duncan era, which ended in 2009, and the period since then under its sixth chief executive David Abraham.

The book will appear in 2017, publisher to be announced.

Tim Dams

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