So Allen steps down, and it would appear that ITV has favoured its shareholders at the expense of its viewers. As one commentator put it: "ITV has tried to be blatantly populist but has failed to be popular...".

And the next day we get the news that ITV's profits are up 12%.

What does this tell you? Well in a nutshell, that from a business perspective, ITV has decided that if the programmes they make have low enough overheads they can have smaller audiences, lower advertising income, and still make more money.

Business-wise, you really can't fault this approach - especially not if you are of the opinion that due to a multiplicity of new media, ad income is bound to fall anyway (though this is not a view shared in the US, where ABC's ad income, for example, is up, and you would have though that the US had an even greater multiplicity of media than we do).

If you regard yourself as "a company that makes money but also happens to make television programmes" rather than the more traditional other way around (which ITV head years ago made that comment? I can never remember), then lower costs and greater profits are surely just what the doctor ordered.

It remains to be seen if Allen's creative team, installed a few months ago, will be able to make programmes that do all the above and are worth watching too - that would surely be the equivalent of the Holy Grail - and I'd actually start watching ITV1 again (instead of 3 and 4).