The ongoing senior exodus at Channel 4 looks set to continue following a consultation on roles within the broadcaster’s commercial team and at least a quartet of departures as a result.
Campaign reports that four people have so far been identified as surplus to requirements as part of the restructure, which follows on from a host of high profile departures including chief exec Alex Mahon, who stepped down in April to take up a director’s role at leading live event producer Superstruct, Ollie Madden, director of Film4 and Channel 4 drama, who has announced he will be departing in October to become director of UK film at Netflix, and group manager of social branded entertainment and partnerships, Sonny McLean, who has reunited with former C4 digital commissioning editor Joe Churchill at STV Studios-backed digital content business, Fan Club.
The broadcaster is also currently searching for a new chair to take over on a permanent basis from outgoing interim and former Channel 5 programming chief Dawn Airey.
Now Campaign reports that commercial leaders Chris Braithwaite and Martin Luck, head of sales (nations and regions) and business development Ewan Douglas, and head of streaming and social propositions Fatima Dowlet will be following their former colleagues out of the door – the four reported departees have spent more than 50 years at the broadcaster between them.
Channel 4 has confirmed that the consultation is taking place, although declined to give any more details. A spokesperson said in a statement: “Channel 4 has begun a consultation process. It would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”
Chief revenue officer Rak Patel, a former director of advertising at Manchester publishing giant Autotrader as well as head of advertising sales, EMEA, at Spotify, took on leadership of Channel 4’s commercial division in January this year promising to “to help accelerate the commercial enterprise and support our advertisers, agencies and partners on the exciting journey ahead.”
Patel has since spoken of a new strategy for the broadcaster which will move it away from a “service model” to one that offers “sales and service,” offering advertisers and agency customers strategic guidance as well as sales strategy and “plugging into Channel 4’s full commercial offer” rather than individual products.
Patel has made a series of his own strategic hires since arriving, including head of sales strategy Samantha Hicks from Whalar, sales business development leader Hannah Barlow from ITV BE, and social innovation and strategy lead Jonathan Birchall from LadBible.
Channel 4 previously underwent a huge restructure in 2024 to recover losses incurred from a downturn in TV advertising post-Covid. This restructure was reported to have affected up to 200 roles across every area of the business, the PSB’s biggest cutbacks since the 2008 financial crisis.
The news comes just days after Ofcom called for emergency plans to protect “endangered species” public service media in the face of rising, and not always entirely fair, competition from streamers and VoD platforms.
