Channel 4 bosses' earnings soared by nearly a third last year, despite the public service broadcaster slashing content spend and hundreds of jobs.

The publicly owned network’s pay for its top team rocketed by 32% to nearly £2.9m last year, the second-highest level in 15 years, according to its annual report.

The largest increase was reserved for outgoing CEO Alex Mahon, who announced her departure last month, whose earnings soared by 44% to £1.3m, including a £544,000 bonus.

Similarly Jonathan Allan, Channel 4’s chief operating officer, saw his pay rise to £848,000, and its chief content officer Ian Katz earned £720,000.

The Great British Bake Off broadcaster saw its revenues rise up by only 1% to £1.04b, and its total content spend was £643M, which was down 3% year-on-year and was at its lowest level since the 2020 pandemic.

Channel 4, which is publicly owned but commercially-funded through advertising, said that 2024 had been a ‘challenging’ and argued it was forced to make ‘tough but necessary’ decisions to cut costs including 200 staff redundancies.

When asked how Channel 4 could justify the rise in executive pay amid cuts, interim chairwoman Dawn Airey said the trio did ‘extremely well’ growing the broadcaster’s revenue.

She added: ‘We saw a massive restructure that took costs out of the business to ensure that we had the performance that we did, and the amount of money spent on the schedule was still extremely significant.’

‘That resulted in very good bonuses being paid for the year that are absolutely justified because this team did an extraordinary job.’

It comes as the broadcaster announced an end to its 40-year-history as a network that obtained all its content from the independent production sector.

In 2023, Rishi Sunak's government abandoned former culture secretary Nadine Dorries' plans to privatise Channel 4 and instead removed restrictions on the broadcaster.

Yesterday Channel 4 announced that it would use its new freedom and £111m cash reserves to bring some productions in-house with a new team and plans to take majority stakes in production companies with commercial potential.

Its annual report comes during huge upheaval at the broadcaster, with Mahon departing just months after former chairman Ian Cheshire exited the channel. The media regulator Ofcom will now find Channel 4’s next chair, who in turn will lead the search in appointing a new CEO.