Investors
Michael Grade Speech to ISBA
08/03/2007
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
I was here two years ago, speaking in another capacity. It is a privilege, albeit a somewhat unexpected one, to be back in the private sector and addressing you again here today.
I am so pleased to return to the world of commercial television. My uncle, lew grade, was a great believer in working closely with his clients, the advertisers, recognising only too well their mutual dependence.
Even in the era of the itv monopoly he believed that. That commitment to the customer was not always shared across itv.
Remember: those were the days when the head of sales for an itv company never came in on a wednesday because it buggered up both weekends!
Fifty years later, i am certain that the need for a strong - i would go so far as to say intimate - relationship between you as advertisers, and itv, is greater today than ever.
I want to focus on that critical relationship between advertisers and itv in my remarks today. But before i do that, i want to say a little about what i have found on my return to commercial television and my plans for itv.
I read the papers when my appointment was announced. There was plenty of criticism of itv - but i thought the headline: “grade inherits basket case” was a bit strong. Now, i do know a basket case when i see one - remember, i support charlton athletic!
I have no magic solution to restore itv to robust health overnight. But there are, i think, some areas where we have to raise our game ourselves.
I believe that itv is in fundamentally good shape. It hasn’t diversified into unrelated businesses and its strategic direction is very clear and very focussed.
After a slow start, itv is now making great strides in digital and new media. Itv remains - by some margin - the biggest and most popular commercial content producer in the uk and itv1 is even further ahead as the uk’s biggest commercial channel. Itv invests around £1 billion every year on programmes. That is more than any other commercial broadcaster in europe. It means that every evening itv1 can still take on the bbc in ratings terms - and, more often than not, we come out on top.
As big as it is, itv1 is still firmly grounded via its regional roots - and is tapping growing regional advertising revenues. As small local advertisers seek to grow their businesses, we are with them every step of the way. Take dfs for example: graduating from just a few spots on yorkshire television to become itv’s biggest single brand spender. That is the power of itv as a wealth creator.
As this audience certainly understands, the great strength of itv lies in its ability to impact upon a mass market. Its unique selling proposition is that it provides the quickest route for an advertiser to achieve high coverage and frequency of a critical mass of uk consumers. In commercial television, no one else can do that.
Fragmentation makes that mass reach more and more difficult to pull off for a broadcaster - and more and more valuable to you the advertisers.
You need itv to be - well - big. Only itv can keep the bbc in sight and keep on delivering more of those ten million audiences. Itv delivers more mass audiences in one evening than most of our commercial competitors can produce in a year.
The dynamics of fragmentation demand the right strategies for maintaining that advantage, and i am presently deeply involved in finding these strategies and am determined to apply them.