Channel 4’s top brass are going through some changes following a busy few years at the broadcaster.
It’s all change at one of the UK’s biggest broadcasters – Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon is stepping down after 8 years in the organisation’s biggest job.
In a LinkedIn post earlier today, Mahon shared the email she had sent to colleagues regarding her departure.
“Working at Channel 4 with all of you is not just a job,” she said. “For me it has been a lifetime privilege because Channel 4 is the most extraordinary organisation… we reflect our country with humour, creativity, grit, and care. We try our best to challenge convention and to change conversations. And we do it with a kind of irreverent brilliance that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else.”
Addressing the timing of her departure, Mahon said:
“It’s (finally) a rare quiet moment. There’s a new Chair coming, and it’s the right time for them to appoint the CEO who’ll lead Channel 4 into its next chapter. I know there will be no shortage of brilliant candidates, and I’m excited to see who that next leader will be.”
Mahon’s 8 years at Channel 4 have certainly been eventful. Her tenure has seen the company face down privatisation plans and open a new national headquarters in Leeds, expanding the broadcaster from its London roots.
The broadcaster has also taken significant steps towards digitisation, with its infamously renamed streaming service (formerly All 4, formerly 4oD) re-re-christened as Channel 4 in 2023 – becoming “the first UK broadcaster to adopt one brand identity across its digital and linear channels”.
All this notwithstanding the organisation’s TV and film output, from continuing blockbuster reality TV formats (The Great British Bake Off, Taskmaster) to impactful documentaries (Russell Brand: In Plain Sight) and co-financing an impressive record of Oscar-winning films (The Favourite, The Banshees Of Inisherin, Poor Things, The Zone Of Interest).
Interim Chair Dawn Airey praised Mahon in a statement, describing her as “one of the most impactful CEOs since Jeremy Isaacs’ founding of Channel 4 more than 42 years ago.”
Channel 4 COO Jonathan Allan will step in as interim CEO on her exit while the hunt begins for a successor.
Photo: Getty Images
