Betraying ? or just leaving? 

29 November 2006 tbs.pm/206

That’s the question that I am sure many people at the BBC are asking at the moment. On the face of it, Grade’s departure is an enormous slap in the face for the Corporation. But is that really the case?

One presumes that Michael Grade was itching to get back into a more programming-related, hands-on position. Chairman of the BBC is not such a post: as he called it in his statement, it’s “governing from a distance”. As far as ITV is concerned, Grade is probably one of just a few who stand a chance of turning the ailing commercial conglomerate around: the present situation is the result of the company having forgotten its heritage in quality, popular programming and becoming instead simply “a company that makes money and just happens to make television programmes” rather than the other way around – which is the way it really should be. More than one network in the US is seeing its advertising revenue rise despite an increasingly diversified market, rather than falling as in the case of ITV, so it’s not impossible. It is likely that a focus on programming rather than profit can turn that around, with the help of the new ‘ITV Imagine’ department – if Grade can swing it with the shareholders. Time will tell. In any event one can hardly disagree that Grade’s appointment to the hard-to-fill position is a major coup for what was once “the people’s channel”.

So much for the benefits to ITV. What about the impact on the Corporation? Is Grade leaving at a critical moment in the BBC’s negotiations with the Government over the licence fee? Well, probably not. One gets the impression that most, if not all, of the heavy lifting has already been done, as is evidenced by the BBC comment that “Mr Grade had achieved a successful charter settlement” – though some commentators have suggested that yes, the discussions had been completed, but no, the BBC has not succeeded in negotiating a funding increase in real terms. One also gets the slight feeling that the BBC would not be dreadfully upset if it “couldn’t afford” to send significant parts of the operation to Manchester if it doesn’t quite get the above-inflation rise in the licence fee it sought. Add to that the fact that, as noted earlier, the position of Chairman is not a hands-on job (that’s the task of the Director General), and any impact obvious to outsiders will be limited, at least in the short term. But equally, Grade has not exactly been at the BBC a long time before leaving precipitously (arguably for a second time).

But it could also be argued that “If you’re gonna go, go now”: if Grade is going to leave, it might be better now than later. Memories of the Corporation’s fight with the Government over weapons of mass destruction are still fairly fresh – fresh enough to ensure that Tessa Jowell will be obliged to find a new Chairman who is independent beyond all possible doubt – very much a Good Thing. Especially now, with the situation in Iraq continuing to worsen daily and a number of American skeletons likely to emerge from their cupboards over the coming months, there are many who are by now completely certain in their belief that the BBC’s coverage of the WMD story was accurate and correct all along, and that the fallout was the result of Government pressure and resulting scapegoating.

How easy it will be to find a successor is, however, a real question. There are people to step into the breach at short notice but it’s not evident who would make a good choice for the long term. Not quite. There is, of course, a talented former ITV (and BBC) chief who is already a member of the new BBC Trust: the deeply experienced Forman-era Granada man and more recently director of programmes at ITV, David Liddiment…

A Transdiffusion Presentation

Report an error

Author

Richard G Elen Contact More by me

A member of the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Liverpool, Friday 29 March 2024