Judging by the BBC’s Salford experience, C4’s government-inspired move to Birmingham will require millions to be spent – and to what purpose?

Moving out of London (to Salford for the BBC, shortly to Birmingham for C4) comes at a price. Just look at the figures, as assembled by Enders Analysis.

The BBC lost 62% of its staff when it moved departments to MediaCity: that was twice as much per person on redundancy (£48,000) as on relocation (£27,000). The Office for National Statistics, incidentally, lost 90% of its London staff when it moved to Newport.

Only 620 C4 employees are involved. They are commissioning and support staff. They do not make programmes and carry no manufacturing base with them. They are also highly skilled men and women, many of them also tied to London because of their partners’ jobs.

If – on the BBC Salford model – 62% of C4 staff don’t go to Brum, that would be a near-£20m redundancy bill, £7m on relocation and another big chunk of cash on hiring replacements. Defections at an ONS level would obviously steepen costs. Reckon £35m gone in any case, says Enders. This is a heavy burden for C4 as advertising stalls, a prescription for upheaval that does no one any good: and an endgame that is pure political show, as government seeks to dragoon a state-created asset and thoroughly degrades it in the process.