Michael Green forced to resign from ITV

Surprised no one has mentioned this so far but it seems to me that the most interesting news today is that the ITV shareholders have forced Michael Green to resign as Chairman of ITV -
Charles Allen next?
and anyone care to hazard a guess what all this means for the future?
Have Granada won the battle ? or is someone (David Elstein?) waiting in the wings?

I as a supporter of a Football League are pretty happy with this news, I've gotta say.

This is a great day for television. Green and Allen have decimated the itv network in an astonishingly large number of ways. Especially by virtually killing regionality, allowing itv Digital to drain enormous resources, pumping out ever increasing amounts of unimaginative, lowest common denominator rubbish, and being responsible for the news at when fiasco.

Hopefully Allen will be ousted next, with Elstein becoming head of the new company - hopefully placing more emphasis on production quality and innnovation, rather than economic gain, and restoring at least some values from the Thames era.

that's not going to happen as long as the regulation is soft touch. The only reason the current sorry state of ITV didn't happen before is because the iron hand of the IBA stopped it from happening. Until you get a decent regulator with teeth and authority back in the saddle who won't be spoken back to, any newbie on the job will just do the same thing.

Why?
It was proven IN COURT that it was the league who were too quick to accept a contract containing no guaruntees because of their own greed. Don't forget how ridiculously high the bid was for the rights compared to other years. When Sky bought up the rights it was a fair price.

It's just a shame you're not a supporter of English.

I agree that an authoritarian authority with a strong leader like Lady Plowden is needed now more than ever, however the pletora of programming and economic mistakes Allen and Green made is laughably large. They just seemed to be constantly making totally wrong decisions. One small example is the recent dropping of news at nine after it proved so successful during the war.

Er, yeah you've answered your own question during the war the News at Nine was popular. I doubt they'll be that same interest. Plus, how can you be sure that it was Green and Allen making decisions on ITV programming? Don't they have a director for that?!

David Liddiment was Granada's annointed son and approved by Carlton...so they are responsible by choosing him and backing him ...you have to remember that whatever he did was subject to approval ...ITV is still in the dying throws of the Liddiment schedule although rather weak tweaking has begun ....'I m the answer' - er .....I don't think so !

Lets face it - between them they wrecked it -ITV is a shadow of its former self - so lets hope the shareholders bring in David Elstein!

Firstly, I wasn't posing a question, but stating the fact that news at nine was popular during the war. I reasoned that:
A) As it was popular during the war at that time slot, why shouldn't it retain it's popularity when the war ended?
B) As the BBC News At 10 usually has far more viewers than itv's programme, it would have been logical to allow the programme to stay at 9:00 for a trial period at least.

To address your second point, it is true that Green and Allen didn't make all the decisions at itv, but they certainly would have heavily influenced sufficiently important decisions, and of course heavily influenced the appointment of those in the network centre making the other decisions.

You just keep on contradicting yourself. The News at Nine was popular because of the event it was specially based on. People aren't gonna make special plans to tune into it for everyday, mundane news. Plus, it would cut into ITV's prestigous 9pm slot, where they normally get the most viewers.

How can you state that it was popular only because of the event? Neither you, I, nor anyone else will ever know what could've happened if they had kept it. I was just speculating that itv's nightly news programme could have been more successful if it was regularly screened at 9:00.
Please tell me why a large amount of viewers watched it at 9:00 during the war but not after it? Also, how am I contradicting myself?



Possibly. But it could have generated more viewers at other times. For example, it would have freed the post 9:30 schedule for films, and other feature length stuff. Also, it would have enabled the network to move the evening news to an earlier time, thus again freeing another part of the schedule, from 6-9, for even more prime time programming.
Finally, it would certainly provide viewers with far more choice than is currently available, in that a news programme would be avaliable at 9:00 on itv, and also at 10:00 on BBC 1.

Two weeks ago at <http://www.tvforum.co.UK/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6867&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=29>


Two weeks is a long time in broadcasting, and it would appear that much of that smile has now been knocked off Michael Green's face. But will he still be laughing all the way to the bank with a huge golden parachute?