Why Channel 4 is Pulling the Plug on E4 This Election Day

On the day that the nation goes to the polls the nation’s most popular digital channel for young people, E4, will switch off its regular schedule for the day to encourage its viewers to stop watching TV and get out and vote in the general election.

The E4 shut down is believed to be the first time in the UK a channel has shut down to encourage people to vote.   It will be announced with a new television campaign launching today (Wednesday 22nd) across the 4 family of channels.  Viewers will be introduced to Darren – the guy in charge of making sure E4 is on. He works in the E4 control room and has ultimate responsibility for the ‘on’ and ‘off’ switch.

As the new TV campaign from 4Creative explains, when polling stations open at 7am, Darren will switch E4 off. Viewers tuning in on the day will simply see Darren manning the control room in place of the usual schedule, commercials and promos.

Dan Brooke, Channel 4’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer said: “Less than half of under-25s voted at the last election so we’ve engaged the most powerful weapon that we have at our disposal to try and boost that number – switching off their favourite TV channel for the day!”    

E4 is the number one digital channel for 16- 34 year old viewers attracting a 5.20% share of the young demographic so far this year – outperforming BBC2 and Channel 5.

The E4 shut down is one of several initiatives by Channel 4 designed to motivate young people to engage and vote. Earlier this month Channel 4 launched ‘X’ - a new campaign aiming to boost the number of under-25s voting. ‘X’ shows young people how to register to vote online and will remind them to turn out on polling day through a series of free personalised SMS messages.  On Monday 28th April Channel 4 will stream the first ever Youth Leaders’ Debate in association with Shout Out UK.  In an online exclusive, seven youth party leaders will go up against each other as they tackle the key issues for young voters.