Another chapter in Five's turbulent history begins with Richard Desmond's acquisition of Channel Five from RTL for £103.5m being finally confirmed today after months of negotiation (and speculation from the press). This deal suits all parties very nicely; RTL gets...

BSkyB agrees to cut ITV stake In recent weeks it has been obvious that the "love affair" between politicians and BSkyB - at least in public - has started to thaw, even to the extent that David Cameron's Tories have...

ITV uncertainty could open doors to takeover bid, says analyst If you now have a distinct feeling along the lines that "We've been here before", then you are almost certainly correct, because despite the attempts made by Michael Grade to...

Michael Grade to step down as ITV chief executive This move comes as a modest surprise given the fact that Michael Grade was scheduled to stay on as chief executive for another year, but if he has done everything he...

ITV admits defeat on content-led turnaround I'll say this now; Michael Grade had exactly the right idea for a turnaround strategy for ITV plc as it stood, but the 'r-word' intervened to prevent that dream from fully happening. Of course...

MPs' report expected to question BBC and Channel 4 linkup Over recent months, around 90% of the media-related ministerial report 'leaks' have been 'surprisingly' accurate, so we can assume that any doubts in relation to a Channel 4-BBC Worldwide tie-up...

Much of broadcasting is a rather boring sounding but essential business. Take SDN for example. It runs a multiplex on Freeview, meaning it provides the infrastructure that runs a sixth of the digital terrestrial television spectrum.

ITV fined £220,000 by Ofcom over regional quotas It has taken Ofcom a year to punish ITV for a regional programming expenditure shortfall in 2007 (likewise a two year delay for 2006), meaning that ITV has finally been fined for...

Government ditches plans to give Channel 4 £14m digital switchover help So the Government has decided rather tacitly to withdraw the earlier digital switchover help proposed for Channel 4 in deference to a more complete solution, which is not only...

There's an element of inevitability about this one - and the one surprise is that has taken so long.

Viewpoint: Ofcom is key player in ITV drama So Michael Grade is threatening to hand back ITV plc's Channel 3 regional licences since it's now claimed that under the current setup they are starting to become unworkable, but whether or...

There's a certain irony that ITV apparently failed to meet its quotas for out of London production. Irony that a network which was founded on regional principles, to spread power and away from the capital, is now firmly rooted in London, and makes most of its programmes there.

It can't have come as much of a surprise that BSkyB have been instructed to reduce their stake in ITV plc from 17.9% to at most 7.5%. Nay, not even to BSkyB itself. So much so, that there's almost nothing...

Thomson buys ITV's special effects unit TWW History ...