Back on 28 November 2006, when Michael Grade walked in to 200 Grays Inn Road to take the ITV helm the share price stood at 110.75p. Today it was just 89.1p. That’s a drop of just under 20 percent, or as we say in journalism — nearly a fifth.
Of course, share prices can go up as well as down, and ITV should be looked at as a long term investment. Besides, it will take at least another year for Grade’s reforms to take effect. By which time we’ll all probably be able to buy it.
Michael Grade. The scorecard so far:
“I started my career there [ITV] and I worked there for just under 10 years. Whether or not I end my career there, who knows?”
“Maybe ITV are pandering [to Ofcom to get CRR changed], but if they think that is the price to get CRR changed it could be too great a price to pay over what they might lose on-screen, it might cost a lot of audience,” [Chris Locke, the UK group trading director at media agency Starcom Worldwide] argued.“The world has changed. People who want news know where to find it … people don’t buy plasma screens to watch news.”
3. Wipes out a chunk of the company’s share value
ITV’s share price closed on Friday at a year-low of 96.2p, valuing the company at £3.74bn. The share price has fallen from a high of 120.9p last May and the company has lost more than a third of its value since it floated on the stock market in 2004.
Doh! Time for a private equity bid.
Two announcements today from ITV:
RDF is back in business as a supplier, subject to new compliance procedures — like don’t let your chief creative officer get his hands on any rushes — that kind of thing. That one certainly slipped out didn’t it? Nothing to do with timing…
And the Deloitte Report.
My favourite bit is the Jiggy Bank* competition from Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. Remember Ant & Dec KNEW NOTHING of any “jigginess” with the competition. Technically, the pair were listed as the show’s Executive Producers, but as Michael Grade explained:
An executive producer credit in their case is kind of a vanity credit … It gave them the comfort … that the editorial team would have to listen to them.
Grade, of course, is ITV’s Executive Chairman (not a vanity title), and he’ll be pleased to know that although his millionaire stars needed to be listened to, they didn’t hear any “jiggery-pokery.”
Here is what actually happened:
1. A list of locations which the pig would visit was drawn up in advance of the series. On a weekly basis a shortlist was drawn up by the production team of 20 to 30 entrants who lived within an hour of that week’s listed location. Entrants from places not near a location on the pig’s schedule, or those from areas already visited earlier in the series, had no chance of winning. This was not made clear to entrants.
2. The production team then routinely used editorial judgement in the final selection of each week’s winner. Researchers would telephone those on the shortlist of 20 to 30 and, as well as checking health and fitness, they would also assess the individual’s likely reaction on camera. From those assessments a final shortlist of five would be drawn up. A researcher then visited these individuals and selected the eventual winner to ride the pig. This practice was contrary to the terms and conditions of the competition, which stated that a random shortlist of potential winners would be selected from the correct and valid entries and that this shortlist would be contacted to ensure that they met the health and safety criteria. A further random selection would then be made from those members of this shortlist who met these criteria.
3. In one episode, an individual known to researchers in charge of winner selection was placed on the shortlist of 20 to 30 entrants after the researchers recognised the name of the individual as a viewer who had taken part in an audition for another element of the programme. The individual was called back as part of the process set out at paragraph 2 above, was included in the final shortlist and subsequently won. This procedure did not comply with the terms and conditions.
4. In another episode, an individual was pre-selected by the production team to win the competition on the basis that this would offer the most entertaining programme.
Thankfully, we now know this can never happen again. And remember, as Michael Grade told the Guardian, “There is a huge public appetite to be involved in shows with voting, [for example] The X Factor which starts this Saturday.” Kerching!
The tea-cup sized trust storm enveloping Paul Watson and his documentary, Malcolm & Barbara: Love’s farewell, continues to brew. He was on the Today programme, Barbara Pointon talked to BBC News. (I chipped in briefly on News 24.)
Watson’s film was made at the invitation of Mrs Pointon (husband Malcolm being unable to grant or withhold consent), and with the express purpose of dramatizing and publicizing the plight of carers and Alheimers’ sufferers (a worthy if partial cause). The marketing USP that separated it from other sympathetic, well-intentioned fare was death on camera.
Now Mrs Pointon is discovering that collaboration and complicity are all but indistinguishable on TV.
David Halberstam wrote perceptively about this in the very different context of the US presidency:
[John F] Kennedy … knew about the inner mechanics and desires of television producers. The television people wanted the best show, and the best show had him at his best. He talked CBS into televising a tour of the White House with Jackie. When the show was filmed, he was allowed a last-minute appearance. He knew immediately, even before it was over and before anyone looked at the film, that his tone was wrong, that he had been perhaps too flip, and he asked CBS to redo it. When the producers looked at the film they found he was right, and of course accommodated him.
When he did a special with all three networks, there was an agreement to film ninety minutes and cut to an hour. Some people watching the filming noticed that George Herman of CBS seemed to ask the toughest questions, and that when he did the President became vague. When the editing took place it was the network producer’s instinct, not the White House’s suggestion, to cut the weak answers. They weren’t sharp, they did not make a good show.
People have come to expect the best show. Television now works harder than ever to sell itself to fewer and fewer. Doubtless the current argument over her husband in his dying days is not what Barbara Pointon wanted, or intended, but it is one she helped fuel.
Expect more problems down the line, not less.