Case Study: Channel 4

Channel 4 occupies a unique place in the UK broadcasting landscape. As a publicly owned but commercially funded broadcaster, it plays a critical role in informing and entertaining the British public. While not formally classified as Critical National Infrastructure (CNI), Channel 4 has recognised the importance of aligning itself with the best practices around resilience and cybersecurity. Amid growing geopolitical uncertainty and evolving legal frameworks like the EU NIS2 Directive, the organisation chose to proactively assess and strengthen its resilience posture.

NIS2 is the EU’s updated cybersecurity directive aimed at strengthening the resilience of critical infrastructure and essential services across member states. It expands the scope of covered organisations, introduces stricter risk management, incident reporting, accountability requirements, and enforces penalties for non-compliance. The directive applies to sectors such as energy, transport, healthcare, and digital services — including many medium-sized businesses previously exempt.

The initiative was not driven by compliance obligations, but by a desire to do the right thing: to ensure that Channel 4 can continue to serve the public reliably and securely. This case study explores how Axcelot supported Channel 4 through a strategic readiness review and a series of follow-up activities designed to enhance resilience and improve their cybersecurity posture.

Initial Engagement: A NIS2 Readiness Review
Channel 4 engaged Axcelot to conduct an independent, holistic review of its alignment with the core themes of NIS2. Rather than take a checklist approach, we focused on the real-world application of NIS2 principles to Channel 4’s specific operating context. The engagement was designed to provide insight into business-level resilience across areas such as governance, risk management, operational continuity, incident response, and supply chain awareness.

The review was grounded in reality: how things worked in practice, not just on paper. It included structured interviews with stakeholders across the organisation, a review of policies, documentation, workflows, and an assessment of how resilience efforts mapped to critical business outcomes. The output was a set of pragmatic, prioritised recommendations focused on governance, communication, and governance maturity uplift, not just technical controls.

Follow-Up: From Review to Strategic Enablement
Following the success of the initial review, Channel 4 invited Axcelot to continue supporting its resilience journey through a series of targeted follow-up engagements. These were aimed at translating the review into action and ensuring long-term sustainability of the efforts.

Reflections and Takeaways
What we did with Channel 4 shows that waiting for regulatory pressure isn’t the only path, or even the best one. Voluntarily stepping into alignment with NIS2 prompted conversations, clarified responsibilities, and helped shape a more responsive, resilient organisation.

Resilience isn’t something you bolt on at the end of a technical project. It’s woven through leadership, culture, communication, and the ability to act with clarity under pressure. When governance and strategy are grounded in the reality of how your organisation works, progress becomes not just possible, but sustainable.

Closing Thought
If resilience, NIS2, or cybersecurity alignment are beginning to rise on your agenda, whether prompted by regulation, risk, or just a sense that the time is right, Axcelot can help. We work with organisations to make these concepts meaningful and manageable, translating expectations into action across strategy, governance, operations, and technology.

Our support ranges from independent readiness reviews and policy development to coaching and technical cybersecurity engineering. We assist with board-level communication, incident preparedness, regulatory alignment (including NIS2, NIST800, and ISO27001), and offer hands-on help where capacity or clarity may be limited.

Whether you’re looking for an external view, discreet advisory support, or structured delivery across teams, we aim to meet you where you are, and help build a resilient, adaptable foundation for what comes next.
Resilience is rarely about a single decision. It’s built over time, shaped by people, and strengthened through clarity and collaboration.