what is micheal Grade up to?

Cost, simple as, even in the days when ITV was a licence to print money, the reason why Stanley Baxters Specials were cancelled was the cost, even at the time they could afford to do so, I'm sure they could have carried on it, but from what I've seen it must have been more expensive to produce than other programmes.

End of the day ITV has far more competition to get on with and has shareholders who want a good return for their investment in the business, Grade is trying his best to do that. ITV ain't a cheap channel and it's audience has declined from 35% to 19% (on average) within 10 years.

I agree it's a shame it's got to this and it shouldn't be allowed to happen, but you also must point the finger to those in power, ie Ofcom for allowing to grovel to ITV's demands. If the IBA were still around I doubt they'd be so leniant.

If ITV was still a licence to print money, then nothing would change, but it isn't, get over it. We're all equally responsible, I can't say I watch very much on ITV1 these days apart from TV Burp and the News, and I think the same can be said with alot of people.

As long as Regional News is kept, i'd be rather satisfied, as I can say I watch very little Regional programming, even when it was on at peak time.

Stanley got sacked by the Same person at both LWT and BBC! name i forget.

I believe this believe come back from the us and looked at the cost ( he was only in the job for a very short time!!!) and get rid of him

Stanley went to the BBC, and guess what? same nice man went to the BBC, and once again sacked Stanley!

so not all about cost, more like a prat of a man

Have you tried finding a new entertainer who'll be well loved and will pull in big figures? It's easier said than done.

Also remember that he is Executive Chairman, not programme controller as he was in those days.



His main job is to try and turn round the company. Operating it like it was 1978 isn't going to work - big changes need to be made

I know and I forgot to laugh.

Although yes, I suppose I'd post a stupid gag like that..

Whatever people may think of Grade's current activities at ITV he has a great deal of knowledge from his many years in the industry. I imagine that he's fairly close to the top of the list of desirable interviewees for any programme discussing TV of yesteryear.

Well, you could try doing two similar-ish programmes, I would imagine. One programme with young presenter/s and one with established presenter/s. And make it either one-off, 2 episodes or whatever and see if it is successful from there. And if it is not, at least you or Michael Grade or some other TV boss can say you've tried.
I do agree you can't just make old programmes again but a healthy balance would be beneficial, in my view.

I think yesteryear is the right word though. I never thought he was the right appointment for ITV, but he's turned out to be even worse as I thought he'd at least try to protect it's heritage, not destroy it.

That's a hugely simplistic way of making a programme and trying to find a new star. Besides, Stanley Baxtor was an entertainer, not a presenter. The difference these days is that the routes where people like him rose to fame no longer exist



That wasn't really my point - they can't run and programme the channel like the old days.

I think the boom periods of the 80s and 90s made television expensive to produce. I mean, you look at a gameshow in the 70s... plain walls, clunky sets, cheap prizes. The main expense was the talent.

If you look at a show like Bruce Forsyth's Big Night, it was billed as a big budget Saturday night show, and yet the set/graphics were very plain, compared to the likes of Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway or The X Factor.

The likes of Catchphrase in the 80s and Millionaire in the 90s increased the demand in top spec television, which was never really essential to provide good quality viewing.

Did anyone else see grade on that BBC two special last Saturday,
" The man who made Eric and Ernie " where there talk about Bill cotten?

Mr grade helped Eric transferee over to the BBC

Agreed, ITV plc needs to become a low cost operation to match its target demographic audience favored by the advertizers.

One way to to do this would be for Emmedrale and Consternation Street to be cut back to five nights a week (Monday through Friday) but made an hour long, viz

19:00 - 20:00 Emmerdale
20:00 - 21:00 Coronation Street

And for the 18:00 - 19:00 they need to get OfCon to finally agree to cut regional news (or they just wait until DSO is complete in 2012 and hand back their PSB licence) so that they could broadcast a cheap fluffy people oriented national news / celebrity oriented entertainment tonight style show.

Apparently regional news is watched predominantly by elderly viewers and these people just do not represent the disposable income groups that advertizers know to home they can target their wares.

Outside of prime time, for the wee hours, ITV needs to get into teleshopping since it is cheap to produce and there is no need for commercial breaks to pay for the program content.

I am sure the stockholders would approve of these attempts to cut costs, in fact I am sure they will support any attempts to cut costs and fire some more staff.

No more annoying than leaving out question marks.