Soap Opera

A few years ago when the Independent Broadcasting Authority (the IBA) regulated television and ITV stations lived on five-year licences issued by the authority any TV station which got involved in the likes of premium-rate phone-in scandals would have faced more than hefty fines. They might have had their licenses taken away. In other words, their businesses would have been closed down and offered to somebody else.

The IBA used to have an officer based in each ITV region. The executives of each TV station had to report on a regular basis to the IBA officer to tell them what they were up to. If the executives fell behind on their license promises to produce, for instance, so many hours of news, current affairs, drama or natural history programming, their license could be revoked, or they could be subject to a diversity of other penalties.

Since ITV was deregulated – and the companies bought and sold like any other businesses ( such takeovers were previously controlled) – it has been plagued with uncertainty and scandal. Viewers who participated in phone-ins competitions they could never win were cheated out of £20 million.

The turnover of Opera Telecom – the company at the heart of the GMTV phone-in scandal – has fallen from £81 million to £57 million, give or take the odd bob or two. The figures are revealed in the accounts filed up to May 2007.

There was a lot wrong with the old ITV system. It was bureaucratic and fussy. But when you look at today’s picture one begins to wonder if the old ways were the best.

The new deregulated ITV shares were launched at around £1.14. Today they’re wobbling at around 41 pence and they’ve been even lower. If you’d bought shares in ITV you’d probably have done better if you’d spent it on a rigged phone-in competition.

ITV as we know it today was primarily Granada and Carlton TV which swallowed up most of the other companies. They still exist – places like Anglia and Meridien – but principally in name only. It’s the type of badge engineering which quickened rather than helped stem the decimation of Britain’s once mighty car industry.

Anglia – for example – was first sold to Lord ‘ Call me Clive’ Hollick and then flogged again to Gerry Robinson’s Granada, best known then for its motorway caffs and devouring the Trusthouse Forte hotels empire. Anglia’s quaint silver knight logo was scrapped, replaced with an anonymous flag. It was all part of the corporate branding rubbish which in reality merely helped to destroy Anglia’s strong regional identity.

Since the great takeovers which ended the federal system ITV has been a shambles. Michael Grade’s performance as the ITV boss has been lambasted. Its ratings are abysmal, its programming downmarket, its attraction to advertisers has shrunk, it can’t compete with myriad feisty little satellite channels like Dave and Nuts and Fiver and it’s desperate to free itself of its public service remit.
Northern Rock, maybe the Bradford & Bingley and a big chunk of the US economy might be nationalised. Could ITV be next?

No, of course not. ITV’s still making money and anyway who cares if it goes under? But it won’t. It’ll be snapped up by a continental player. Berlusconi keeps being mentioned
( usually in the same breath as programmes about stripping housewives).

The rumour that ITV is about to be taken over has been around so long it’s become a hoary old chestnut. Without such talk the share price would fall even lower.

Imagine though if ITV decided – and was permitted – to flog off all its studios and offices around the country. If it decided to up sticks and pull out of the regions altogether and just to transmit its utterly dreary output from London.

In that event there’d be more commercial property to rent or lease coming to the market.

There’d be more houses for sale or to rent in the residential market as well. Redundant TV execs in the regions would have to pack their bags and move elsewhere to get jobs.

Television studios are sometimes as big as aircraft hangars. An Anglia studio in Norwich used to be a bowling alley. But why would anybody want to rent a redundant TV studio?

If the recession really begins to bite obsolete TV studios could be used as hostels for the homeless, giant soup kitchens or emporiums selling mountains of second-hand clothing.

Perish the thought. Even Berlusconi in the buff would be preferable to that.