Freedom at a price
Grade calls for all ITV genre quotas to be axed
You can probably tell that Michael Grade is having a really tough time sorting out ITV when he ends up making statements such as "I am not looking for support, I want the freedom to invest my money in the market", as he did at the RTS Cambridge Convention on Saturday.
Given broadcasting's recent and very patchy track record, eg. all those premium phone line scandals (though admittedly Grade did disown the ITV Play channel), do we really believe Michael Grade when he claims that "It is in our interests to make the highest possible investment in indigenous production. The market will decide where we put that money"?
It seems obvious that if ITV's public service committments are removed, then it would be solely up to Michael Grade to produce quality drama and regional programmes using ITV's programme budget, and unless he had a burning philanthropic desire to educate the nation there would be no guarantee that commercial interests wouldn't override such promises.
ITV has made numerous pledges in the past in exchange for concessions to its various public service commitments and most if not all of these pledges were subsequently broken. Therefore it would be foolish to trust any commercial broadcaster (not just ITV) to provide any service that doesn't always generate the most profit.
The difference between ITV and specialist channels such as National Geographic is that the latter is supported by subscription revenue from BSkyB, therefore National Geographic can afford to produce and show programmes that don't attract huge audiences. ITV is mainly funded from advertising that basically relies on a dwindling mass market audience.
Grade knows that no amount of public money would help ITV make better programmes since he knows full well that the potential amount of assistance offered would be derisory for a large commercial broadcaster. His comments in respect to deregulation are probably a veiled attempt to force the issue of contract rights renewal which is currently being reassessed.
Total deregulation of ITV is unlikely to happen anyway whilst Labour is in power, since that would basically go against the philosophy of having public services supported by private money. Plus it would upset ITV's commercial competitors in relation to its current privileges such as the ownership of regional licences and its Channel 3 EPG position.
Some might find his comments about Channel 4 to be surprising, namely that he would now prefer it to be privatised as opposed to receiving public money because as a result it would lose its independence. Perhaps closer to the truth is the fact that Michael Grade now works for ITV and it would greatly benefit ITV for Channel 4 not to receive any financial assistance.
Life at ITV must have turned out to be pretty hard for him.
