IPL live on ITV

Quite an unexpected cricketing coup for ITV.

The Independent station has just announced that it has picked up the rights to the IPL and ITV4 will be showing 59 of 60 live matches over 45 days.

There is a fair chance that it secured the rights for a nominal sum after the collapse of Setanta last year.

The tournument,the richest cricketing festival in the world is already being show on You Tube.

It all begins on the 12th March

Sky devolves itself of ITV

It certainly didn't take Sky long to offload its stake in ITV following last week's ruling and has chosen to sell 10.4 per cent of the commercial broadcaster, the minimum amount that a 2008 government ruling had laid down.

Back in 2006,the stake was always regarded as a long term investment and a way of ensuring that ITV did not succumb to any other takeover big.

Sky will probably argue that both of those criteria have been reached

£800k plus £15m for Crozier at ITV

If you didn't already know ITV has got a new chief executive,a certain Adam Crozier whose reputation for cost cutting and change is well established at both the Post Office and the FA.

According to the Sunday Times this morning he was lured there by a £15m payday if he can turn round the fortunes of ITV.

Crozier will earn a basic salary just below the £800,000 paid to Michael Grade, his predecessor, but his annual bonus has the potential to be more than double that

. adding

The big incentive is a parcel of shares he will be awarded on arrival. How many he will finally collect depends on the company’s performance over his first three years in the job.
Crozier will be able to pick them up only after another two years at the helm, making 2014 and 2015 the key years in the plan.

How to solve a problem like ITV

Liberal Blog Mark reckons thinks he has got the solution

1.Restore Regional Identity-which would lead to a number of regional variations and local programmes that we just don't get from them any more as well as regional continuity which had a more personal feel.

2.Revive World In Action or create a modern equivalent

3.More political programming which would address the station's credibility.

4.Sort out the "Sitcom" problem. When was the last time ITV commissioned a really good situation comedy show?

Interesting ideas and I am certainly with him on the first three,especially the regional identity.Maybe the organisation needs to have a local or regional feel to it instaed of the blandness of a national commercial station.

Ht-Iain Dale

First local news consortia invited to submit tenders

"The huge increase in viewers and readers seeking information about the terrible floods in Cumbria over the last week is a clear demonstration of that. Its importance to local democracy, coupled with the acute challenge being faced by commercial news companies, means there is a need for Government support.""The huge increase in viewers and readers seeking information about the terrible floods in Cumbria over the last week is a clear demonstration of that. Its importance to local democracy, coupled with the acute challenge being faced by commercial news companies, means there is a need for Government support."

The words of the culture secretary Ben Bradshaw who has announced today that Border and Tyne Tees are to be the first region to conduct the pilot experiment for local news.

The panel will then select bidders wanting to form independently funded news consortiums to provide regional ITV1 news bulletins and other content for the area to go forward to the second stage after Christmas with the submission of final tenders by the end of February 2010.

Tories lose a goat-ITV gets a new poisoned chalice keeper

The appointment of Archie Norman as ITV Chairman is a coup for the channel - and bad news for Conservatives.

That's according to Danny Finkelstein at the Times' Comment is Central.

He reminds us that apart from being former chief of ASDA,he was also a former Tory MP who was

a critical Conservative figure. During his period at Central Office he guided all the leading figures towards a new analysis of the party's problems.
Without Archie's prodding and his leadership, it really is quite possible that the modernisers and their analysis would not have emerged.

So the loss?

the party will need change managers to help transform public services. And there is no better change manager in Britain - as ITV will discover - than Archie Norman.

And the chalice?

The business model for ITV is effectively buggered.The only way it is really going to survive is to downsize,specialise and concentrate on broadcasting for a niche.Maybe that means that it must go downmarket even more than it already has,forget quality drama,news and documentary.

Now ITV's Friends sale could be scuppered

ITV's plans to sell Friends Reunited has hit more problems.

The company was planning to sell to Brightsolid, a division of DC Thomson & Co, for around £25m.It planned to combine Friends reunited's family history site, Genes Reunited, with its own genealogy properties, 1911census.co.uk and FindMyPast.com.

Unfortunately the regulator has stepped in and the FT reports that

after investigating the UK genealogy market, the Office of Fair Trading decided that the “current competition in this market or the potential for future entry is sufficiently strong to prevent the merged firm from reducing the quality or range of its services, or possibly raising prices”.

ITV bought Friends Reunited for £170m back in its heyday of 2005.

A terrible indictment of Michael Grade's reign

Yesterday's Lex column in the FT maybe sums up the current state of play at ITV

It is a terrible indictment of Michael Grade’s reign as executive chairman that the company is unable to attract new tenants for its c-suite. With Sir Michael Bishop withdrawing his candidacy for the chairmanship, headhunter Russell Reynolds is again back to square one, days after Sir Crispin Davis, the previous favoured candidate, also left it in the lurch. How the headhunter must wish it had never won this mandate, which over the past six months has turned into a dismal advertisement for its capabilities.

Why you couldn't charge for Susan Boyle

Staying on the subject of paying for online content,Jon Bernstein writing at journalism.co.uk looks at the problem of micropayments at ITV.

Their recent experience of the multi viewed Susan Boyle which whisked its way around the globe on You Tube,prompted Michael Grade to say that

“We are working on it and watch this space, but we’re all going to crack it, either when the advertising market recovers or a combination of advertising and micropayments which is 50p a time or 25p a time to watch it.
We may move in time, in the medium term, to micropayments, the same way you pay for stuff on your mobile phone. I think we can make that work extremely well.”

However Bernstein argues that it simply won't work describing the Boyle experience as persihable goods that people won't pay for

Quality drama may have a shelf-life and an audience willing to pay for it, but a water cooler moment from reality TV? Not likely.

and that

Micropayments only work if you control distribution which of course using the Susan Boyle analogy,you wouldn't

License fee may end up funding ITV regional news

There is an interesting report in this morning's Telegraph which suggests that a proportion of the license fee could be used to fund ITV's regional news.

Ahead of the Carter report it is claimed that Lord Carter will

recommend that some of the BBC's annual revenue should be used to fund regional news services on ITV and broadband for all.

The money will come from the so called digital surplus

the £800 million built into the present six-year licence fee settlement, which began in 2007, to help older and disabled people complete the switch to digital television by supplying them with set top boxes. This is scheduled to be completed by 2012.

The surplus is reckoned to be around £250m

Boyle saves ITV

Maybe one swallow doesn't make a summer but ITV after all their problems must be happy with the final week of Britain's got talent.

Writing in the Spectator Simon Hoggart says

So it could be that ITV is saved not by a cigar-chomping, hot-shot show-biz executive but by a spinster from a Scottish village. The appearance of Susan Boyle in the first semi-final of Britain’s Got Talent (ITV, all week) was greeted with adoration — and audience figures — that would have been apt if Maria Callas had returned from the dead.

Why Grade is steeping down

For a good analysis of the reasons behind Michael Grade stepping down as Cheif Exec at ITV read Robert Peston's blog

The reason is that the commercial broadcaster faces three significant strategic decisions - and ITV's board sensibly concluded that it would be inappropriate for those decisions to be taken by Grade more-or-less alone and then bequeathed to a new chief executive.
Better to appoint a successor, before the end of this year, to set the direction of the business which he or she would then have to travel.

Interestingly Peston spoke to Grade earlier today and he told him that

market conditions were tougher than they've ever been since ITV was founded more than 50 years ago. Which is particularly galling for him, in view of progress in improving programmes, reaching more viewers and in removing shackles imposed by regulators.

How Labour ruined ITV

Alex Singleton blames the Labour party for the demise of regional TV.

Writing at the Telegraph's three line whip he says that the decision of the government back in 2002 to waive the next round of franchising helped pull the rug from under the regional companies.

because its network was regularly franchised. Under performing regional ITV companies were sacked; those with fresh ideas were hired.

And then just to make matters worse it

1.also manipulated the ownership of ITV's franchises, using competition rules to weaken Carlton and

2.allowed Granada, the stale northern franchise-holder, to gobble up most of the network.

Tyne Tees accused of bullying and racism

An interesting story bubbling up at Guardian media surrounding Tyne Tees television.

A series of investigations have taken place at the Tyne Tees newsroom amid allegations of racism, sexism and inappropriate comments about ethnic minorities and disabled people made by a manager, who was later paid off, claiming the comments were merely "black humour".

adding that the claims against the company have so far reached £1m

Investor unease at ITV

It seems that some investors at ITV are not that happy with Michael Grade and want him to step down ahead of a possible share issue.

Following last week's results,the board are considering a £730b issue but according to the FT

some leading shareholders say they would only support such a move if Michael Grade stepped down from his position as executive chairman and worked alongside a new chief executive.

Investors,it adds

have become steadily disenchanted with the group, which last week scrapped its final dividend as well as the financial targets it set 18 months ago.

Grade comes out fighting

It was interesting listening to a rather bullish Michael Grade being interviewed on the Today programme minutes after ITV announced a 41% drop in pre tax profits,cutbacks in programming budgets and savings which will include 600 jobs being lost.

It is difficult to pin much of the blame on Grade who has been in the job less than two years and inherited an organisation which for whatever reason had lagged behind its competitors in the changing broadcasting environment.

That Grade acknowledged that was good to see as was his determination to build up the corporation back to the brand it was when it enjoyed a near monopoly position in commercial broadcasting.

Those days will never return but nevertheless Grade still sees content and image as the way forward and I would applaud him for that.

It is unfortunate that his plans for the network have coincided with the drop in advertising revenues and as a consequence,costs have to be brought in line with revenues.

More jobs cuts on the way for ITV and 5

A bleak week is being predicted for both ITV and Channel 5 this week.

Around 100 jobs or a third of the workforce may go at five and ITV as it prepares to announce its annual results may lose as many as 500 as it will announce a second efficiency review.

Already a thousand jobs have gonme at the commercial broadcaster.

For Channel 5 a new budget has been approved for the current year and is thought to include staffing cuts in the face of falling advertising revenue

Friends Reunited up for sale

The news that ITV is considering selling the website Friends Reunited may tell us two things.

Firstly the dire financial situation of the broadcaster which is being forced to sell a business proposition that it bought in a blaze of glory just three years ago.

Secondly that since buying the site,the broadcaster has found that its popularity has declined.As Paidcontent reports

Friends Reunited has withered on the vine - holding on to its core audience of subscription payers, rather than innovating to take on the likes of Facebook, cost Friends nearly half its user traffic between 2007 and 2008.

The fault of ITV? Quite possibly according to the same report which says that

Friends Reunited had been the star performer in what has been a lucklustre ITV web portfolio, making up two thirds of online sales (£22 million in 2007). That was before ITV decided to kill its cash cow by axing the subs, making Friends ad-supported last April - just in time for the advertising recession.

The sale will no doubt help the broadcasters debt position which stood at £663m last June.How much it would get for the site is less clear but surely in the current climate the £120m that it spent will be unattainable.

ITV covers the moon landing

After last nights debacle at Goodison Park,Dave Lee finds another ITV exclusive

First thoughts on the OFCOM proposals

By all accounts the long awaited report by Ofcom into public sector broadcasting which has just been released is high on rehetoric but low on solutions.

It recognises that the model is broken but fails to give a solution on how to fix it.It gives ITV what it wants in terms of public service committments but fails to provide the solutions for replacing that service.

It has rejected the top slicing argument and believes that Channel 4 needs to merge but doesn't give the answer to whom it merges with,only saying that it could be BBC Worldwide or Channel 5