Channel Four Television Corporationis a British state-owned media company which runs 12 television channels and a streaming service.
Unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is instead funded entirely by its own commercial activities. Its original and principal activity is the British national television network Channel 4.
The company was founded in 1982 as the Channel Four Television Company Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the IBA, and became an independent statutory corporation in 1993.
November 1998 saw Channel Four expand beyond its remit of providing the 'fourth service' in a significant way, with the launch of Film4. Since then the corporation has been involved in a range of other activities, all in some way associated with the main channel, and mainly using the '4' brand. The company also owned The Box Plus Network, a music-focused company with a network of six music television channels. One of them, 4Music was folded into the corporation in 2019.
