Grade takes a slice of humble pie
When it rains it pours and its possible Michael Grade is now hunting around ITV’s Gray’s Inn Road headquarters for spare umbrellas following Ofcom’s announcement of a £5.67 million fine for the broadcaster today.
ITV executive chairman Grade is still likely to be absorbing the implicatons of the departure of managing director of global content and possible heir apparent Dawn Airey to RTL/5. Now there is a very public punishment being meted out by the regulator of breaches of the Broadcasting Code.
Several media outlets reported in advance of Ofcom’s release that ITV would be fined in the region of £4 million and suggested that Grade had proven a master tactician and diplomat in securing such a relatively paltry fine. Whether Ofcom was provoked by this display of congratulatory back-slapping to up the fine is unlikely but the regulator is certainly keen to prove it has teeth.
The fine is still not large given ITV’s overall revenues but Ofcom’s statements are damning in the extreme and the calls to broadcast a summary of Ofcom’s findings on ITV1 must be galling.
There is also devil in the detail with Ofcom highly critical of “inadequate systems” at ITV that prevented the broadcaster supplying information that would allow Ofcom to investigate abuse in regional programming.
The regulator’s chief executive Ed Richards said: “This was a thorough set of investigations which uncovered institutionalised failure within ITV that enabled the broadcaster to make money from misconduct on mass audience programmes. The industry can be in no doubt how seriously Ofcom takes the issue of audience trust.”
Grade has swallowed hard for the second time – he apologised when the scandals first came to light – and said sorry once again. In his response today he said: “For anyone who cares about British broadcasting the Ofcom findings and the Deloitte review make for sorry reading.”
He added that the abuses were “gross editorial errors of judgment” designed to enhance the viewer experience rather than “corrupt attempts” to gain further revenues. This is a point that may be lost in the more frenzied media coverage now erupting but it seems his point is that the tampering with quizzes and interactive voting was all about showbusiness and not pocketing extra cash. People will have their own views on the claim.
But the fundamental issue is trust – and not just the trust of viewers in the integrity of the programnmes they choose to watch but the trust of the City that there will be no more shock announcement to destabilise management and depress an already sinking share price.
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