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Channel 4 closes digital innovation brand

Losing £20m, game-supporting 4iP arm, but claims digital funding will continue

Broadcaster Channel 4 has revealed it is to abandon its digital innovation brand 4iP, which has funded a number of game projects.

The £20 million warchest will 'disappear', with the £8 million still unspent to be poured into other technology projects.

Existing projects will not be affected, while staff will be moved to other divisions as part of company-wide move to a single online, cross-platform and education division.

The new merged division is to focus only on projects that increase Channel 4's audience or revenue.

However, Channel 4's acting head of cross-platform, Matt Locke, claimed via Twitter that the changes may not be as sweeping as feared. "The brand is going, but the commitment to digital and innovation is the same, if not stronger, at C4.

"There's an amazing amount of good stuff and people at C4 in different digital teams. This is about bringing focus, not stopping stuff."

"Journalists love using the word 'AXED!' though."

Previously, 4iP has funded 60 projects over its two year history, such as Mudlark's Chromaroma - a mobile and social game based around Oyster card usage.

The program also recently invested in three projects in Dundee, and even held a presentation at GamesInvest 2010 just last week.

The Guardian speculated that the fund ran aground due to illness suffered by its head Tom Loosemore, the departure of C4's digital commissioner Daniel Heaf and the arrival of new, TV-focused CEO David Abraham.

Said the firm's director of creative diversity, Stuart Cosgrove, "We are not junking any projects and this won't see the diminution of investment in innovative technology. We're not pulling the plug on anything.

"Technology innovation and digital media will be across the company rather than in one unit, and we will continue to commit that level of investment."

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Alec Meer

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A 10-year veteran of scribbling about video games, Alec primarily writes for Rock, Paper, Shotgun, but given any opportunity he will escape his keyboard and mouse ghetto to write about any and all formats.