Alex Mahon describes herself on Twitter as an “insatiable TV watcher, feminist and mother of 4”. Ask almost anyone else in the television industry about the newly appointed chief executive of Channel 4 and they invariably mention that she is good company and has a PhD in physics, not necessarily in that order.
The first woman to head the state-owned company committed to diversity, or indeed any of the big British broadcasters, Mahon is likely to need all her intelligence, charm and contacts to deal with the challenges facing Channel 4.
Born in London, Mahon moved to Edinburgh at the age of five, where she grew up with her mother and stepfather. In a relatively rare interview with the Scotsman newspaper, she talked of a “non-standard household” that eventually grew to nine stepbrothers and sisters and an early job in her mother’s pharmacy.
After studying physics at Imperial College London, she left medical research, becoming first a consultant and then strategy executive for the broadcaster RTL. After six years working with Elisabeth Murdoch at Shine TV, she became chief executive in 2012, overseeing companies that produced hits from Broadchurch to MasterChef.
If there is a consensus about Mahon within the industry it is that she is good company and manages to retain relationships despite the occasional abrasiveness. “Extensive references” from within the television industry swayed Channel 4’s nominations committee after Mahon’s experience running Shine and Foundry, which has produced special effects for films including Gravity and Guardians of the Galaxy.
These references showed that Mahon was “an outstanding leader, both greatly respected and liked” said the Channel 4 chairman, Charles Gurassa. “In a creative organisation such as C4, that leadership is very important and significant.”Peter Fincham, the veteran television producer and former controller of BBC1 and director of television at ITV, recruited her more than 10 years ago when he was head of the X Factor producer, Talkback Thames. He speaks highly of her intelligence and people skills.
“If she were a politician, she would have read her red box every night and be totally on top of the brief by the morning,” he said. “I think she will be especially good with politicians. She will fight Channel 4’s corner and fight it well but also do it by winning friends rather than [making] enemies.”
Mahon greeted her first executive role in public service television by saying: “In these changing times, C4’s mission is more important than ever.”
And these changes are significant ones, including a likely move out of London for a broadcaster that has spent its entire 25 years within walking distance of Westminster; an advertising market hit by Brexit fears as well as long-term structural decline due to digital disruption; and the fact that younger viewers, a key part of the population Channel 4 was set up to serve, are switching over to digital platforms faster than any other demographic. In the first five months of the year, Channel 4’s share of 16- to 34-year-olds was down 10% on last year.
On top of this, Mahon will have to replace Channel 4’s chief creative officer, Jay Hunt, who has done much to reinvent the channel in the past six years with hits such as Gogglebox and, more controversially, last year’s purchase of the Great British Bake Off, but who is to leave after missing out on the top job.
Themedia analyst Claire Enders said of the challenges: “Is this the right time to up sticks from Channel 4’s historic HQ? No, it’s insane! But moving is a small distraction compared with the main problem of the future of public service broadcasting in the digital age.”
Relocation is the most pressing of the challenges facing Mahon, however. The most likely options for a move are thought to be Birmingham, Salford or Leeds. Channel 4 is expected to resist moving all or even the majority of its 830 employees north, but any relocation is expected to cause “very significant financial issues”, according to Enders. After almost two years of difficult negotiations, there is no suggestion that they are about to get any easier.
The Conservatives committed to moving Channel 4 out of London in a manifesto pledge that also promised to keep the broadcaster in public hands. Despite a yearlong notice period at her current job as head of Foundry, Mahon will be involved in the government review of the channel’s future, which is set to conclude by early July. She is expected to start officially this autumn.
Gurassa highlighted the feedback on Mahon’s relations with government as one of five key reasons for her appointment. “She is known and respected within Whitehall,” he said.
Her experience of government affairs centres on her membership of two advisory groups formed by the then-culture secretary John Whittingdale. He asked Mahon to sit on a broadcasting policy group thinktank when he was shadow culture secretary in 2004. She quit before it made controversial recommendations that the licence fee should be phased out.
Last year, Mahon was also a member of the advisory panel set up by Whittingdale’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport ahead of the BBC charter review. Her calm and thoughtful analysis of a complicated brief apparently impressed civil servants and politicians alike.
John McVay, the chief executive of Pact, the trade association for independent producers, is also a fan. “My experience is that she is very inclusive and believes in empowering people below her. She is good at hiring great people and then supports them. What’s bad for creativity is too much control.”
Channel 4 is particularly important for Pact’s members as it has no in-house production department and spends more than £600m a year with 326 of them.
Pact proposed that Channel 4 follow the BBC’s example in increasing its spending commitment outside London to 50%, which some believed would have headed off government plans for a relocation. “Channel 4 did not want to discuss that”, said McVay.
Channel 4 spends 40% of its budget and 55% of its hours in the nations and regions, above the media regulator Ofcom quota of 35% but below the 50/50 split agreed by the BBC. Relations between the channel and independents have become strained in recent years over what some producers have considered overly centralised decision-making.
Nonetheless, McVay is confident that his fellow Scot will not be fazed by a move north. “She will be very pragmatic and smart about it,” he said.
In a piece headlined “Secrets of my success” for the London Evening Standard in 2016, Mahon wrote of working for Foundry, a private-equity backed firm. “I like that the focus is international as I have only ever done international tech and high-growth businesses. I enjoy that ‘running-to-catch-up’ mode.”
Expected to have been given a pay package worth £900,000 at Channel 4, Mahon is no stranger to large salaries, having been amply rewarded during her eight years at Shine. Some analysts believe Murdoch’s company had overstretched itself by buying too many producers and was helped by the takeover by the family firm. However, Mahon herself lost out when the top job was given to a former Sky executive when the company was subsumed into the mega-indie Endemol Shine.
Still close to Murdoch, some associates say she acted as the owner’s bad cop. “She is smart and clever, although there can be an abrasive part to her,” said one. “I like it that she calls a spade a spade, but then she is prepared to whack you over the head with the spade.”
Mahon is known to get up at 5am to spend an hour in the gym before her four children wake up. Colleagues talk of someone who would relax after an 11-hour flight to Los Angeles by doing a three-mile run before heading to the bar with the rest of the team. With a “wicked sense of humour”, according to one former colleague, she was known to enjoy Shine’s occasional corporate away days in Ibiza.
Fincham insists that his protegee is fun. “She is not just the hardest worker in the class, but also the brightest ... she is not the school swot, neither is she Mrs Thatcher.”
Like the first female prime minister, Mahon’s appointment breaks new ground in becoming the first woman to lead a terrestrial television channel in the UK. Gurassa said: “She understands C4 and what we stand for. Alex is excited about innovation, risk tasking, diversity and gender.”
Her appointment was welcomed by diversity champions. The veteran broadcaster and peer Floella Benjamin tweeted: “She will be brilliant as she is all embracing & a driver of diversity.”
Congrats to AlexMahon on her new role as CEO of #channel4. She will be brilliant as she is all embracing & a driver of diversity @mahonalex
— Floella Benjamin (@FloellaBenjamin) June 5, 2017
Enders said the appointment reflected changing times in the industry where the BBC has two senior women in the executive team. “Of course this is a really big breakthrough, but women of huge talent have been in the industry for a really long time. She is there because she is highly respected.”
CV
Age: 43
Career: Mahon became a medical physicist for the NHS after her PhD in physics. She became a tech consultant and then strategy executive for RTL before moving to Talkback Thames and Shine. While running Foundry, Mahon joined the UK’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport as a member of its advisory panel on the BBC’s future.
High point: Appointed the first women to run Channel 4 on 5 June.
Low point: Losing out on the top job when Shine merged with Endemol in 2014.
She says: “I didn’t know anything about producing TV, but when you’re young you’re really not scared of anything.”
They say: “If she were a politician, she would have read her red box every night and be totally on top of the brief by the morning.”
