Jamie said “Some young people have switched off Facebook entirely. In the UK, 18-to-24s spend as much on TikTok as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp combined. There is rampant competition for time. TikTok is the one growing fastest right now, and has scale, it’s the one to watch.”

Tom said “The unprecedented thing about Channel 4 was that it basically took, and still takes, money from advertisers and funnels it directly to independent production companies that Channel 4 doesn’t own. It also had risk-taking and diversity of opinion written into its remit."

“The problem is, what makes Channel 4 special is not economically defensible. If you asked any media company if they’d commission It’s a Sin, they’d say yes because it was a huge hit. The point of Channel 4 is all the risk-taking shows that no one watched. If you see what the people who made those shows did next, that’s where the value is. It’s about the failures that went on to create success.”

Claire said “Everyone will want to look under the bonnet of this miracle company and understand why it produces so many prizes."

Looking beyond the U.K. and U.S. Claire suggested certain European powerhouses such as Vivendi, which controls one third of key Channel 4 supplier Banijay, and RTL parent Bertelsmann, which owned Channel 5 between 2005 and 2011.

“The outcome will drive the net result and identity of Channel 4’s suitors,” added Enders, who predicted UK producer trade body Pact will “fight this every inch of the way” on behalf of its members.

Claire said "You have to consider that people don't watch high-end dramas end-to-end all the time, what they do is they watch a whole range of different programming. Channel 4 is obliged to offer news, current affairs, documentaries, all kinds of programmes which are made with a very distinctive British voice."

"Some of them are very low budget, so although the visible signs of competition tend to be whether you've got an amazing new franchise based on Lord Of The Rings to land, actually the bread and butter of TV and TV advertising is made of daytime shows, of late nights, of all kinds of programmes that people like to plonk into...

"Channel 4 really is a very cutting edge broadcaster with a very strong base in young viewers, which is extremely attractive to advertisers. Advertising is not a feature of Netflix, it's not a feature of Disney+. It's not actually in direct competition with anyone. It is in fact a free-to-air broadcaster, universally available."

Claire said Mr Lynton was considered a future director-general of the BBC and a big supporter of public service broadcasting. 

"I would see him as a defender of Channel 4's remit, a defender of independence of Channel 4 and someone who would bring gravitas and a lot of corporate governance experience."

Claire Enders, founder of media research firm Enders Analysis, said Channel 4 might end up being better off owned by a company that “wishes it all the best” rather than “a government that does not want it”.

She warned, however, that the process of preparing the necessary legislation was likely to be long and could stretch beyond the next election, adding that another government might have a different attitude towards Channel 4 and privatisation.

The channel could fetch between 750 million pounds ($984 million) and 1.2 billion pounds, said Claire Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, depending on which elements of its current responsibilities are preserved. It could take years of lawmaker wrangling and “is not going to be for the faint-hearted."