Channel 4 celebrates the first anniversary of its new Leeds HQ this week and Sinead Rocks admits, with some understatement, that “it’s been a year of challenges”.
The broadcaster moved to the building in the West Gate development last October, while work was being completed on the Majestic, which will eventually be its permanent home.
“We had a really good start, in that we managed to get our office open on a really tight turnaround,” Rocks, Channel 4’s Managing Director for the Nations and Regions, tells Prolific North.
“We opened the Leeds office less than a year after the city had been announced as the home of our new HQ, so there was a lot of frantic work to get the site open and operational.
“The next big piece of work was recruitment and that went well. Then lockdown happened and no sooner were our offices open than we had to pull the shutters down.
“The challenge then was how do we, overnight, turn ourselves into an organisation where everyone works remotely and we can commission and take receipt of programmes with such restrictions in place.”
Despite the significant challenges of covid, which continue, Rocks insists that Channel 4 has emerged strongly, proving it is an “immensely flexible and sustainable” business.
In March, there were about 90 staff based in Leeds, and now the figure is 120, although the majority are still working from home. Eventually the aim is for 300 posts to be based across the hubs in Bristol, Glasgow, Manchester and Leeds.