ITV told: Grade will have to go

By Jon Rees
Updated: 04:08 EDT, 26 April 2009

ITV has been warned that a radical solution to the company's woes will not happen unless Michael Grade quits when a new chief executive is appointed.

Resisting change: Michael Grade will step back from his role as executive chairman

Grade said last week he would step back from his role as executive chairman of the loss-making broadcaster, home to Britain's Got Talent, by the end of the year at the latest.

But he would stay on as nonexecutive chairman, a move predicted by

Financial Mail last month. However, various potential candidates for the role of chief executive contacted this weekend said they would not take the job while Grade remained in the chair.

They fear that Grade, who has been executive chairman since he joined ITV from the BBC at the beginning of 2007, would resist any significant change in the company's strategy. It is understood that some of ITV's biggest shareholders are taking a keen interest in the process.

Future Publishing group chairman Roger Parry, who worked on a bid proposal for ITV with investment bank Merrill Lynch two years ago, said external candidates for the role of chief executive would baulk at working with Grade.

'Michael is one of the truly great figures of British television, but how could you have a candidate with a completely different approach to ITV's problems working under him?,' he said.

'If they really want an external candidate, I do not think they will be able to find one. Our plan called for ITV to be split in two between its production arm and its channels.

'You have to break that umbilical link, which is so different from the way ITV has run things that it would rule me out.'

Other potential external candidates said they would accept the job only if Grade agreed to quit.

'I would expect it to be part of the agreement with the board that Grade would step down as chairman shortly after the appointment of a new chief executive,' said one.

Meanwhile, there are suggestions from within ITV that it might look outside the media industry for a new chief. ITV, which said it talked to shareholders about raising money through a rights issue but has 'no current plans' to do so, unveiled a £2.7bn loss for 2008.