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Alex Mahon resigned as director general of Channel 4 after almost eight years, provoking a search for a new boss of the British public sector at the same time as he is looking for a chair.
Mahon has been in the channel since 2017 – joining her first wife Managing Director – and will leave in summer. She aligned a new role, although Channel 4 refused to comment where Mahon was going.
His departure comes after the reduction of jobs and the costs of Channel 4 last year following the worst collapse of advertising revenue since the financial crisis of 2008-2009.
The broadcaster is also looking for a permanent chair, after the outgoing president Sir Ian Cheshire announced last year that he would also have broken down. A search is carried out by the Russell Reynolds head hunters, and the appointment will be supervised by OFCOM, the media regulator, but signed by the British Secretary of State.
Dawn Airey is president until a permanent appointment is made.
The new president will be responsible for the appointment of the next CEO, Mahon told staff. She added that it was “finally a rare calm moment” to leave.
She added: “There is a new chair to come, and that's the right time for them to appoint the CEO which will lead Channel 4 in its next chapter.”
Mahon's overall salary to the broadcaster, which is financed commercially but public, fell by around a third to £ 993,000 last year. She is also a member of the non -executive board of directors of Chanel, the fashion group.
Channel 4 is in the midst of a change in its business model of a decreasing linear television company to a growing model in online streaming and social media, where its audience is more.
Channel 4 revenues fell to around 1 billion pounds sterling in 2023, compared to 1.1 billion pounds sterling the year before, leaving a deficit before tax of 52 million pounds sterling, compared to an excess of 3 million pounds Sterling in 2022, according to the latest figures available.
During his mandate, Mahon helped secure the future of Channel 4 as a public sector broadcaster following the attempts by conservative ministers to privatize the canal. She also directed the move of parts of the organization's operations outside London and put its head office in Victoria on sale.
Channel 4 also obtained the right to make its own television shows for the first time in its 40th anniversary, rather than outsourcing production to the independent sector.
In her note to the staff, she said: “We protected the brand, even if we reinvented it. We remained risky, relevant and tirelessly.”
Mahon will be temporarily replaced by Jonathan Allan, chief operations of Channel 4, as acting managing director while the board of directors undertakes a search for permanent replacement.
Also on Monday, the BBC announced that an examination of its work culture found no evidence of a toxic culture within the public sector society. However, he warned that some staff members had declared that there were “a minority of people at the BBC – at the same time and outside the air – who were able to behave unacceptably without being approached”.
