Who would want to own ITV with Sky able to take a peak at your every move, every corporate decision? Certainly most trade buyers would be discouraged. It might not put off the venture capitalists - although a share price of p might.
Sky can now have it both ways. If the share price goes up - because ITV is revitalised - then Sky's shareholders are quids in. If the share price goes down further, it is probably because the multi-channel players - and for that read, Sky - are doing very well in the digital world.
ITV wanted her before, and more than anyone at Sky, she understands terrestrial television. Sky are currently full of comments about being a supportive shareholder. How more supportive could you be than to lend them a chief executive?
There is a widespread belief that Lygo is the best director of programmes in the business. Some of the ITV board already thought of him as part of a dream team. Why would a Sky-backed ITV not want to go out and hire him. After all the years wondering whether Elisabeth or Lachlan would succeed Rupert one far off day , perhaps this was the deal that showed why James was allowed to become chief executive of a Footsie company at such a tender age.
Little Jimmy has all growed up and he has the tactical nous of his father. Feel free to add your own conspiracy theories, nuggets of gold, and programme ideas here:. Sky and ITV: what does it mean? By there were 15 separate Channel 3 regional broadcasting licences. The ITV network was historically been owned by a number of individual companies, each administering services for Channel 3 on a regional basis.
The Act also lifted the restriction on companies holding multiple franchises. By , all the franchises, except those in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, were held by two companies: Carlton and Granada.
The two companies attempted to merge twice during the s, but were frustrated by legal provisions banning any one ITV company from controlling more than 15 per cent of the total terrestrial TV audience or holding more than one London franchise. This block was removed by the Communications Act , and in October , the Government signalled that it would not stand in the way of a merger.
In recent years, ITV has been able to attract top business talent to run its operations. ITV is required to provide local news as part of their franchise agreement together with a local weather forecast.
This involves running a local bulletin at 6pm and regional bulletins located after each national news programme. Concerns have been expressed that ITV is looking to merge its regional broadcasts into larger pan regional areas. These areas are said to have less relevance to viewers, and are in danger of not constituting local broadcasting. ITV has now largely reduced its other regional programming, doing so after Most regions do though still produce a monthly regional political programme.
On 14 January , ITV plc regional news programmes titles were discontinued in favour of more generic branding under the ITV news title with the region listed as the subheading. Nonetheless, there were many debates during the passage of the Communications Act expressing concern that a Carlton-Granada merger would reduce region-specific output and lead to the concentration of TV production resources in London, at the expense of the regions.
It was also feared that the removal of ownership restrictions would lead to British domestic channels being bought up by foreign companies less concerned with quality content than making money. The decision to shift the News at Ten to a later slot in , reversed in January , was seen as particularly symptomatic because it was justified on the grounds of allowing the channel to show more films.
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