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C4 gets £20m cash injection

Flush with new advertising revenue, UK broadcaster Channel 4 has increased its forecast programming budget for this year by £20m, bringing the total estimated 2004 spend to a record £469m.

This budget top-up has allowed Channel 4’s director of television Kevin Lygo to pull forward current affairs, drama and entertainment shows originally slated for transmission in 2005.

As a result, the fourth run of Tiger Aspect’s Teachers and Company Pictures’ feature-length drama about comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, titled Not Only But Always, will hit the air earlier than anticipated, alongside next season’s two-part drama Sex Traffic and 9/11-inspired one-off Hamburg Cell.

On the current affairs front, Channel 4 is now ramping up its coverage of the US elections with more documentaries fronted by Jon Snow and Peter Oborne. The fall schedule will also be welcoming a special run of international current affairs strand Unreported World and flagship investigative strand Dispatches.

Comedy has also been singled out for a shot in the arm. Peter Kaye’s new series Max & Paddy, hospital comedy Green Wing and the second series of Peep Show will now be joining the autumn line-up. The extra spend will also filter through to Channel 4’s Christmas offering, which will include seasonal special of this year’s hit ‘family’ drama, Shameless.

“The public service purpose of Channel 4 is to maximise investment in innovative programmes and original creative talent,” said Lygo. “In that respect this is proving to be a great year for Channel 4 with a lot of fresh programmes, like Shameless and Brat Camp, which have been both critically well-received and commercially very successful.”

The £20m raise stems from Channel 4’s strong advertising revenue performance year-to-date, a result of the 5% year-on-year increase in the broadcaster’s audience share. To week ending August 15, Channel 4’s year-on-year shares of the 16-34 demographic and ABC1 audiences were up by 10% and 7% respectively.

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