As the year turns I, like most other programme makers in Britain, anxiously await the government’s plans for Channel 4. Despite earlier assurances, it seems privatisation is being actively considered. In the rush to the barricades on behalf of the BBC, this other reappraisal of our broadcasting landscape is taking place almost unnoticed. But there’s nothing to worry about, is there? Any change would require vice-like regulation to preserve the channel’s challenging remit. Everything’s fine. No need to start digging another last ditch.

Why, then, as 2016 begins with gales and floods, am I reminded of another stormy January a quarter of a century ago? Early 1990 found me at the old ITV franchise, Yorkshire Television, editing my first TV drama. Shoot to Kill told the story of John Stalker’s inquiry into police shootings in Armagh, Northern Ireland, in 1982 and grew out of years of work on First Tuesday, YTV’s award-winning documentary hothouse. The programme went on to generate both awards and lawsuits, but for me it was the chance to try my hand at TV drama, which has been my home ever since.

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Elsewhere, other ITV franchises were in equally rude health. At Central, John Pilger was completing Cambodia – The Betrayal, a follow-up to his game-changing Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia. At Granada, among World in Action’s many triumphs was the exoneration of the Birmingham Six – the righting of one of the great miscarriages of justice of the day. At Thames Roger Bolton was dealing with the aftershocks of Death on the Rock, which suggested that three IRA members had been shot by the SAS in Gibraltar without warning, while attempting to surrender. All these programmes featured original journalism on a vital issue of public policy – continuing ITV’s proud tradition of being a thorn in the side of government.

What we didn’t know, as we beavered away in our cutting rooms up and down the country, was that changes were being drafted in London that would sweep away the entire edifice on which these programmes were based – excising a complete tier of what we then quaintly called public service broadcasting.

The changes proposed in the Broadcasting Act 1990 had seemed innocuous. Franchises would be auctioned; ITV companies would be floated on the stock market. It felt like a kind of workers’ collective. Employees could buy shares in their companies. I remember having breakfast at YTV and watching riggers, electricians and boom operators checking the share price as they ate their bacon baps. We had no idea our world had changed – and not for the better.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest C4 News’s Matt Frei, Cathy Newman, Krishnan Guru-Murthy and John Snow. ‘In the decade preceding 1993, ITV was winning 39% of all RTS journalism awards. In the two ensuing decades, this fell to 22%’ Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

The previous status quo was so well established that we barely gave it a thought. Franchises were allocated by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. To keep your franchise, you had to win “brownie points” with the regulator by making adventurous, risk-taking programmes. If not, the IBA would give your franchise to a more deserving organisation. The result was something quite bizarre – a commercial operation funded by advertising which produced exceptional and often quite demanding programmes. Why? Because meeting the editorial terms of the franchise was judged more important by management than making excessive, short-term profits.

When Yorkshire TV floated on the Stock Market in 1991, all this changed. We now had new shareholders to whom our board was answerable. The key determinant was profitability. The IBA no longer mattered. It had to award franchises to the highest bidder, virtually irrespective of programming track record.

I know what you’re thinking. This is just the predictable whining of an interested party. ITV continues to produce excellent programmes. Look at Downton Abbey. There’s no lesson here for Channel 4.

It is the duty of any board with responsibility to shareholders to minimise ‘encumbrances’ and maximise profits Michael Grade

In TV, the gold standards are the Bafta and the Royal Television Society awards, given for programme excellence. So I decided to compare the number of awards won by ITV in the 10 years leading up to 1993 with the number won in the decade that followed. Here’s what I found: between 1983 and 1993, ITV won roughly 28% of all national Bafta and RTS awards. Between 1994 and 2004, this fell to 15%. Between 2005 and 2014, it was 14%.

In other words, after the changes the proportion of awards won by ITV fell by half. Replacing striving for “brownie points” with the need to maximise profits led to an almost immediate collapse in ITV programme standards.

The figures for journalistic excellence are equally damning. In the decade preceding 1993, ITV won 39% of all RTS journalism awards. In the two ensuing decades, this fell to 22% – again, a drop of almost half.

So what about those current assurances that any privatisation of Channel 4 would be accompanied by cast-iron regulation to ensure programme standards? Strangely enough, the same assurances were given when ITV was sold. But in 2003, the Communications Act relaxed ITV content obligations. In 2005, Ofcom reduced ITV’s regional non-news quota from three to 1.5 hours a week. In 2009, the quotas were reduced again, with current affairs almost halved and regional news reduced by a third.

As Michael Grade said before he entered the House of Lords and took sides: “Just look at what ITV has been up to since 1993, constantly pestering for relaxations to their licence conditions. This is appropriate commercial self-interest. It is the duty of any board with responsibility to shareholders to minimise these ‘encumbrances’ and maximise profits.”

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And the funny thing is that no one talks about it. It used to be a badge of honour at ITV that we challenged the BBC in every serious area of programming, but no one now remembers those thrilling days. It is somehow accepted that ITV is a downmarket, stultifyingly cautious broadcaster – as if it has always been thus, as inevitable as the weather. Well it isn’t and it wasn’t. It was done consciously, and a small number of people became extremely rich as a result. I know; I was there. I watched it happen.

And this is the fate that awaits Channel 4 if we allow the privatisation to go ahead. A quirkily brave and occasionally brilliant broadcaster will be reduced, as ITV companies were, to a profit centre. Hundreds of millions of pounds which are currently used to make programmes will be diverted into shareholders’ bank accounts. Channel 4, as we know it today, will cease to exist.

And that’s OK, if it really is your will. But please don’t let it happen by stealth. This time we have no excuse. History’s lessons are there on our television screens for all to see – in ITV’s sad and sorry decline.