Right now I should be working on a click path analysis for a client, but I thought I must drop a line about Michael Grade’s impending departure from ITV - an altogether more tempting way of passing a few minutes.  Grade is a scion of one of the UK’s leading media dynasties - a dynasty that includes Lew Grade and Bernie Delfont, and that dynasty’s contribution to entertainment has been massive, through both theatre and television (The Saint, The Persuaders and The Prisoner to name but three cult classics).  But the achievements of the family elders should not be allowed to detract from the achievements of Michael Grade himself.

Michael Grade is the man who bought us the Big Breakfast, Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross, Peter Kay, Big Brother, Time Team, EastEnders, Clive Anderson, Dennis Potter’s Lipstick On Your Collar, Friends, some really cutting edge episodes of Cutting Edge plus many other land mark events in UK television such as Football Italia and the financial backing of Four Weddings.  But as well as providing support for new editorial ventures, he was also commercially successful.  He found the perfect balance between editorial and commercial imperatives and guided the Channel into its most commercially successful years.  TV thrives on a virtuous circle of great programmes delivering strong audiences which attract good commercial revenue.  Grade placed Channel Four firmly on that upward circle.

The fact that Michael Grade cannot now crack ITVs problems is not a reflection on his ability, but an indicator of the scale of ITV’s problems.  TV is in stormy water. Just as the talkies took over from the silents and the small screen took over from the big screen, and just as video almost squashed cinema and as cinema underwent a resurgence, so television is now having to ride the heavy seas of change.  In these circumstances it needs a strong and visionary navigator at the helm.  Unfortunately, talk of Grade’s replacement inevitably includes the old “merry -go-round” of senior TV executives, but for me none of these will do. To survive, ITV must look forward not backwards to the glory days, it must find a new definition of what it stands for and it must find a new way of monetising content across multiple platforms.  These issues require experience from beyond the cosy world of television. To survive, ITV must go outside TV and into the wider communications market for its next leader.

Perhaps Grade is drawing on his family’s theatrical heritage and following that old dictum of the boards; leave the stage with them wanting more.  One possible error is that he may have left that bit slightly too late.