New ITV Takeover Bid

In the Financial Mail On Sunday, ITV has made the front page yet again from another takeover bid by private equity group, KKR fronted by Lord Hollick.
It explains ITV's losses and viewer stability, along with market detail. Lord Hollick was the former cheif executive of United Business Media, who owned the franchises prior to 2001 that we now know to be "Granada Regions". The paper also speculates that Sir Peter Burt, cheif exec of ITV, is expected to quit.
Source

you know. I wonder if ITV getting taken over might be a good thing.

if there were major changes at the top there might be a change in ethos where quality comes first and tripe like ITV Play is scrapped. Well even keep ITV Play and make money from the fools to fund fab programming.

Anyhow must be off, I need to go to the opticians as my specs have a slight reddish tinge to them...

I think, on balance, I'd prefer the option with Greg Dyke involved, for good ethos, to the one with Lord Hollick.

I can't remember the exact dates, but didn't the centralisation of United's continuity in Southampton occur BEFORE the centralisation of Granada's in Leeds?

If so, I would rather expect the majority of people on here to vote against Hollick as well.

Absolutely! I'm not sure how he does it, but Greg brings great ethos with him. The day he finished at the Beeb, something else went with him too. By the time Mark Thompson walked through the door staff morale and ebbed completely.

DOUBLE POST

Hopefully they'll axe all the current programmes on itv at the moment,minus the world cup ofcourse as its the only good thing on it.Bring back Trisha

The United takeover was around 1996/97, but Anglia were still doing their own pres in 1999 (Michael Speake introduced most editions of Anglia's 40th anniversary programme).

Didn't the Southampton operation follow the centralised playout + local announcer model though, in much the same way as Westcountry with HTV Wales or TT with YTV <1996?

Agreed with the sentiment I have to say, Hollick was part of the problem, so he'd certainly not be part of the solution in any way that people here would appreciate.

Says a lot about you.

Three words... and three words only (OK, four if you want to be pedantic!)

BRING BACK REGIONALITY!! Please?

That was one of the reasons why ITV was called INDEPENDENT Television wasn't it? Lots of small companies running things in each region, not one big corporation!

Says a lot about a vast majority of the UK population

PLEASE...Just stop! Regionality is dead on ITV.
It will NEVER make a full return. Get over it once and for all.