Do you need £5,000 for a history of television project?

The Shiers Trust can make a grant of up to £5,000 towards publishing work on any aspect of TV history

Grants will be given to assist in the completion of new or unfinished projects, work or literature specific to the objectives of the Trust.

George Shiers, a distinguished US television historian, was a long-standing member of the RTS. The Shiers Trust grant is in its 22nd year.

Application procedure

Applications are now invited and should be submitted to the Trustees by 30 April 2023 on the official application form. Applicants must read all the conditions www.rts.org.uk/ shiers-trust-award

When, at the beginning of November last year, Channel 4 celebrated its 40th anniversary with a lavish party, complete with a sit-down dinner, at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, many of those attending wondered if they were witnessing the end of an era.

For decades, the idea of privatising what many considered to be one of the jewels of British broadcasting had been considered by politicians. But successive leadership teams from Michael Grade’s to David Abraham’s had, in the end, always persuaded policymakers that a commercial Channel 4 would jeopardise its programmes and ruin its unique contribution to the UK creative economy. It would undermine the future of those small to medium-sized independent producers whose lifeblood flows from Channel 4’s unusual publisher-broadcaster model.

This time, the Government’s determination to privatise Channel 4 felt different, propelled as it was by Boris Johnson and his arch loyalist Nadine Dorries. Yet, despite a new Prime Minister in Rishi Sunak, and Michelle Donelan replacing Dorries as culture secretary, it seemed the die was cast to upend the broadcaster’s business model and transform it into a private operator, possibly owned by Paramount, ITV or Discovery Time Warner.

Spool forward two months. On 5 January, Donelan confirmed the rumours that had been circulating for several weeks – Channel 4 would remain in public ownership, albeit with a few modest reforms.

The culture secretary declared that “Channel 4 is a British success story and a linchpin of our booming creative industries” and, therefore, should not be sold. Instead, there would be a series of tweaks to its operating model, including the ability to make more of its own content (something for which the broadcaster had not asked), to increase its borrowing limit and to move still more of its activities outside London. Another U-turn from an administration that seemed to specialise in them: just months earlier, the message from Whitehall had been that only a privatised Channel 4 could compete effectively against the US streaming giants.

Significantly, Channel 4 would be allowed to remain in its Richard