Jeremy Warner: Grade should be calling it a day at ITV
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Your support makes all the difference.Outlook ITV is breaking one of the first rules of corporate governance practice by allowing Michael Grade, effectively chief executive for the last two and half years, to move seamlessly into the position of non-executive chairman.
It's not his fault that ITV's grand recovery plan has ended up being put through the shredder. The worst advertising downturn in living memory has intervened to derail all his best intentions. What's more, by splitting the roles of chairman and chief executive, Mr Grade is only returning to the same plan and timetable agreed at the beginning of his tenure.
But times have changed dramatically since then, and although Mr Grade has achieved some progress in reviving the schedule and restoring audience share, key strategic and structural challenges remain, and it is not clear that the new chief executive, whoever it might be, will be free to answer them as he sees fit as long as Mr Grade is still hovering around proceedings like Banquo's ghost.
ITV will struggle to attract a top outsider to the post with Mr Grade breathing over his shoulder. If there is to be a new chief executive and a new strategy, there should be a new chairman and a fresh start. Mr Grade's behaviour in suing The Times over a little bit of commercial rough and tumble in a piece written by Greg Dyke seems frankly petulant and shows that events are getting to him. Time, perhaps, to call it a day.
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