Grade Received with Standing Ovation at ITV

LONDON, November 29: Michael
Grade, who resigned yesterday as chairman of the BBC to become the executive
chairman of the U.K.’s leading commercial broadcaster ITV, was greeted by ITV
staff with a standing ovation.

Although Grade officially starts
at ITV in January, he visited ITV’s Network Centre. He told the press that his
emotional ties to ITV and the chance to turn around the ailing broadcaster were
the reasons he took the post.

Grade left the BBC while it is
negotiating with the U.K. government on the level of the public broadcaster’s
license fee. BBC director-general Mark Thompson has said that Grade’s departure
will make no difference in the final decision on the license fee.

Grade had worked at ITV from
1973 till 1981. His uncle, Lord Lew Grade helped establish ITV back in 1955. As
executive chairman, Grade will reportedly receive a pay package that is
potentially worth more than £8.5m over three years.

Among his top priorities, Grade
has pledged to invest more in programming, to work with ITV’s creative team and
give them time and support to reverse ITV’s recent slide in the ratings. Grade
has also said that he will treat BSkyB, which recently acquired an 18-percent
stake in ITV to block a potential takeover by NTL, like “any other
shareholder”.