According to MediaGuardian ITV has rejected a takeover approach from Goldman Sachs, Apax and the Blackstone Group.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs and private equity company Apax are reported to have approached ITV about injecting �1.5bn to gain effective control of Britain's biggest commercial broadcaster. ITV would remain public and would increase its level of debt by returning up to �3.55bn - or 86p a share - to shareholders, according to the Daily Telegraph.
On the subject of regionality could'nt agree with any of you more - and done properly not only with individual idents, but with more REGIONAL OUTPUT! This hopefully, provides you with a logical, if simplistic answer to the question of the value of local programming throughout the UK, Larry. Like you say, though, wishful thinking!
On a more serious note, one has to wonder what the plans of Apex Partners are. Do they reckon the shares in ITV PLC are seriously undervalued? I know this appears to be the case as per regards SMG PLC, where the shares trade at a significant discount in relation to the value of the group's underlying assets. This has all too frequently served to make SMG as an obvious break-up target - but until ITV PLC can be persuaded to buy SMG's television assets, this potential route to easy profit can never be realised. Do Apex have a ready-made suitor to purchase ITV's television assets (this appears to be the only way to ultimately yield a quick profit for the new investors)?
Frankly as much as I agree with what is being said on this Topic, frankly when someone else decides to buy ITV, then they're not going to care about Regional Identity, they're more keen on saturating every penny out of the Company and making as much profit as they can, which in-effect is not too dissimilar from what they're doing now and what they have been doing since ITV's main audience share has been dwindling.
I'm not too bothered about ITV1 being ITV1, that's fine with me, it's just the fact that the programmes are getting worse on some aspects and little is being inveseted into New Talent across all forms of Entertainment such as Comedy. It's also really annoying me that you never see anything new or different in the schedules, it's just same old same old, day after day.....
Though then again Broadcasters such as ITV don't have the money or time to invest in a failing project, simply because there is too much commercial pressure.
I would just like to point out to everyone on this Forum, that if you were a shareholder in ITV Plc, you'd only care about the share making money, not that money is being wasted on Public Service and other low watched forms of programming, which is better spent elsewhere.
I personally think it's a sad time if we compare even the ITV of ten years ago to what we have today.
The people who run ITV now are of course wanting good value for money per share they are offered by this Consortium, but you have to see what ITV will be like in 5 years, if it's going at it's current rate of dwindling audience shares from the main ITV1 channell, it won't be as valuable as it is today I can say that for nothing.
When it is sold, I can't see much being changed, just more of a boardroom shuffle, all of the Consolidation of the Company has been done now, probably just that Charles Allen would get a juicy pay-off and a minor boardroom shuffle, otherwise it's going to be the same priorities.
Sadly, put in its simplest form, this is all about the suits in the boardroom and the institutianal gannets making sure they're looked after, without even giving so much as a cursory glance in the rear-view to the public they are supposed to be serving.
Turns out Greg Dyke was one of the people involved in the takeover bid yesterday. he once called Charles Allen, "a cost-cutting caterer who knew little about television"
No-one think for a minute that the evolution of ITV into one largely centralised company is either:
Something that only the current management would have done
Something that wasn't inevitable as soon as the various parts were allowed to merge
Something that will be un-done by the new owners
It isn't any of these. The only reason it's attractive to buyers is because of the structural changes made over the last few years. In fact if it had been more radical and streamlined more then it would be a big success and would be more expensive, thus less likely to be bought.
Whatever happens there is no way that Apax or any other buyer is going to look at ITV and think 'what we need to do is to duplicate our broadcast operations in 10 seperate locations spread right across the country'. It doesn't make either business or practical sense
