A decade ago, TV accounted for almost half of the display ad spending in the UK, and online about an eighth. Today, online is more than half and TV is about a quarter. The shift is being driven by viewing moving online, as young people in particular spend more time using video-sharing platforms such as YouTube, and subscription on-demand services such as Netflix. Channel 4 has always sought a younger audience, yet live TV represents only 16% of the viewing of those between 16 and 34, compared to 36% five years ago.

To combat the problem, Channel 4’s leadership have announced Fast Forward, a strategy to become a “ genuinely digital-first public service streamer by 2030”. But it faces an unenviable challenge; competing for digital ad revenue with Google and Meta, whose scale and capabilities are far beyond UK broadcasters, and competing for subscribers in an increasingly crowded streaming market with Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Disney, whose content budgets dwarf Channel 4’s.

But even if tech companies weren’t increasingly dominating the ad market, advertising is still the wrong way to fund Channel 4. There has always been a basic contradiction between the channel’s reliance on advertising and its public service mission, which requires it to champion unheard voices, innovate and take risks, contribute to citizenship and debate, and make films. But the need to make ad revenue pushes it in totally the opposite direction; towards commissioning programmes—reality TV, gameshows and other cheaper formats—that will reliably deliver high ratings at a low cost per viewer.

Worse, advertising can have a censoring effect; biasing commissioning towards programmes that attract the viewers advertisers care most about (typically the “upmarket” ones with higher incomes) , and away from genres or topics less likely to promote a “ consuming” mood in the viewer. This leads to a situation where the revenue generated by more commercial shows cross-subsidises mission-focused work, like Channel 4 News and Film4.

There is a solution, though. Borrowing an idea from Sweden, which introduced a 6% tax on print advertising in the 1970s to subsidise its local newspapers, we could do something similar in the UK: a 6% tax on advertising across all formats, including online, would generate about ￡2.2bn a year. That would more than solve Channel 4’s funding problems, almost doubling revenue for 2022.

The benefits would be enormous. Channel 4 could eliminate ads across TV and online. Its commissioning could aim simply at fulfilling its mission: making high quality, innovative, risk-taking programmes and films that promote unheard perspectives—and therefore doing what its more commercial rivals are too risk-averse to do.

With greater funding at its disposal, the channel could also make more big-budget drama and comedy series, and win back some of the young people abandoning British broadcasters for US imports. And it would be able to do all this safe in the knowledge that its funding is future-proof; as ad spending goes up, so will Channel 4’s funding, and with no need to periodically ask the government for funding increases.

Which of the following would be the best title for the text?