“We were created to drive a partner ecosystem.”
Rak Patel, Chief Commercial Officer - Channel 4
Channel 4 had just turned 44 when Evan Shapiro and I sat down with its Chief Commercial Officer, Rak Patel, for this week’s Media Odyssey Podcast. Rak spent seven years at Spotify before joining, and Channel 4 is his first job in TV. We wanted to know what it means to be a public service broadcaster in 2026 and what it takes to stay relevant and keep growing.
Channel 4 is publicly owned but receives no public funding. Only 10% of its £1.03bn revenue comes from anything other than advertising, and it makes no programmes in-house, commissioning them from more than 300 independent producers a year. A broadcaster built that way relies on partners and Channel 4 has added two big ones since September.
From 2027, Channel 4 Sales will be the exclusive UK ad sales partner for Channel 5, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon, which puts two public service broadcasters under one sales team. Six weeks later, Channel 4 announced that its linear channel and on-demand shows will be on Disney+ from early 2027. The BBC and Channel 4 have talked about a streaming partnership, director-general Matt Brittin told MPs in July, so I asked Rak why Disney+ came first.
Then there is YouTube. We couldn’t stay clear of the topic. We had Matt Risley back in 2025 to talk about the C4 YouTube strategy. It was about time we brought the money side of that strategy and Rak is not short of asks for YouTube.
Nobody knows yet whether these are the right bets. I think they beat standing still, and I’ve asked Rak back in 2027 to break down the numbers from these swings Channel 4 is taking. It will be his turn to buy the Orangina. No the episode is not sponsored by Orangina, it’s just my favourite drink on the Croisette (yes during day time…). If I buy you one, you know you’re one of my people.
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That’s it for today but before you go: