A method to design channel interleavers based on span properties and mutual information is presented. Resulting interleavers enjoy better burst error control and can mitigate the effect of regular error patterns. An application example based on the 2nd generation Digital Video Broadcasting Terrestrial (DVB-T2) standard is elaborated. Four channel interleaving structures are generated, resulting from a joint optimization of the interleaver span properties in the time and frequency domains, while guaranteeing good interaction with the bit interleaver. Proposed solutions are compared to the standardized DVB-T2 channel interleaver in terms of performance, latency and complexity. A significant improvement can be observed in severe channel conditions, especially over time and frequency-selective channels with erasures. Moreover, the complexity and latency of the proposed channel interleavers are reduced compared to the original DVB-T2.