ITV hunts for CEO as Grade quits

U.K. broadcaster struggles to reverse losses

By STEVE CLARKE

Grade

The race is on to find a topper to run Blighty’s cash-strapped private terrestrial giant ITV following executive chairman Michael Grade’s decision to quit a year earlier than planned.

Grade’s move, announced Thursday, is believed to have been precipitated by disgruntled stockholders following a dismal period for ITV, which last month announced record losses of £2.7 billion ($3.9 billion).

He will become non-executive chairman by the end of 2009 at the latest.

Internal candidates for what remains one of Blighty’s top media jobs are likely to include chief operating officer John Cresswell, commercial director Rupert Howell, strategy head Carolyn Fairbairn and programming chief Peter Fincham.

But no one will be surprised if ITV’s board goes for fresh blood.

There is speculation that Michael Jackson, the former CEO of U.K. pubcaster Channel 4, could be well placed to ease ITV out of its hole and devise a viable strategy for the digital age.

Jackson’s experience of the Internet, acquired in the U.S., where he is a special adviser to Barry Diller’s Web company IAC, could prove valuable in Blighty.

On Wednesday, Jackson joined the board of Scottish broadcaster-producer STV, his first U.K. gig for almost a decade.

Grade, appointed in 2006, seemed ill at ease running ITV in a multichannel, broadband-enabled media landscape and struggled against various setbacks.

These included dealing with the fallout after it emerged that ITV had defrauded auds out of millions of dollars in faked phone-line competitions -- a problem created before he arrived -- and losing global production boss Dawn Airey less than six months after she came onboard.

While ITV’s onscreen perf has arguably improved under Grade’s watch, structural changes coupled with a dismal advertising market made Grade’s promise to make the broadcaster “the most watched, most lovable and most talked-about” web in the U.K impossible to keep.

In March, ITV announced it would cut another 600 jobs and slash $197 million from its program budget, which Grade had always insisted would be untouched.

To improve its balance sheet, ITV confirmed Thursday that it is selling digital subsidiary SDN, which could raise up to $292 million, while an additional $85 million is being poured into the coffers through covenant-free financing to ease debt pressures.