It is commercial television that is really in peril

Channel 4 can’t afford Carol Vorderman and says it needs more cash for its public service remit. Nonsense, writes Neil Midgley: it is mass-market television that needs help

Carol Vorderman has, apparently, become too expensive for Channel 4’s game show Countdown. Gone are the carefree days when Channel 4 could afford to poach Paul O’Grady from ITV to chase teatime ratings. Now, says C4 chief executive Andy Duncan, it can only fulfil its public service remit if someone — most likely Gordon Brown — gives it a new £150 million a year subsidy. Similar bleatings come from senior BBC executives when- ever the future of the licence fee is discussed (despite the fact that the BBC can evidently afford £6 million a year for Jonathan Ross). Yet the BBC and Channel 4 — both publicly owned — rake in £4 billion a year between them, and the licence fee is guaranteed until 2013.