EXCLUSIVE: As the BBC dominates the headlines and the future of the licence fee is placed in doubt, another major British public broadcaster Channel 4 looks set to have to wait longer to discover the fate of its own future-defining government decision on privatization.Deadline understands the publication of the landmark government White Paper into broadcasting, which will include a decision on Channel 4 sale and potentially lead to a Media Bill making its way through parliament, has now been pushed back to the Spring.If published then, the long-awaited White Paper will have been delayed by around six months, having first been slated for Autumn 2021 and then pushed back until the end of that year.Two sources with knowledge of the situation indicated the delay to Deadline, which the Culture department did not confirm or deny when contacted for comment.One of the sources said Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries “doesn’t have the same sort of beef” with the It’s a Sin broadcaster as she does with the BBC, and she has appeared less keen on a sale than her predecessors Oliver Dowden and John Whittingdale, the latter of whom was regularly called the architect of privatization.Furthermore, the source said Dorries’ department is “overwhelmed” with work on the recent BBC licence fee deal and Online Harms legislation, the latter of which is one of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s major reform areas and was described by the source as “insanely complicated.”The second source described the situation with Channel 4 privatization as “in flux” and concurred that the Culture department “has its arms full” with Online Harms, with thousands of responses to the initial government consultation into privatization still unread.“It’s becoming hard
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