Charming Chancer With a Restless Streak
By Chris Blackhurst, Evening Standard, London
Jan. 10–On his first day in charge, Michael Grade sent a message to the troops. He promised to “get around” as much as he could and “meet as many of you as possible, as soon as possible.” Continued Grade: “Do give me a shout if you see me walking around, I’m the one with red socks (but no cigar these days).”
That was when he took the chair of the BBC in May 2004. This week, he reached for the template marked “new job, touchy-feely round robin” again as he arrived at ITV. In a letter put on the desk of each staff member, the new executive chairman said he would be holding employee roadshows and they could view his progress on an intranet site, First 100 Days. Ever-inclusive, he said he wanted ITV to “be on the front foot far more in all we do, creatively and commercially. That means we have to focus much more on risk and innovation.” We should all, he added, be prepared to “risk failure [not too often]“.
That last bit in brackets says much about Grade. It’s flip and unnecessary, but hints at a menace beneath the warmth. He’s a showman who choreographs his performances, about what he will wear (for ITV Day One it was a vivid red tie) and what he will say — and who, all the time, has got his eye fixed elsewhere. This is the person, after all, who once said there were two certainties in his life. “One is that I would like to be chairman of the BBC. The second is that no one will ever ask me.” They did ask him and he repaid them by quitting.
As John Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, said of his tenure as chairman: “He loved it, in his way, but for him it was one of many branches of the entertainment tree: somewhere to swing from, if necessary, in order to reach a more congenial resting place.”
Once the shock of Grade’s defection had settled in, Simpson’s reaction was widely shared. There are few in the corporation shedding a tear for Grade — certainly not in the way they did for Greg Dyke when he left. Partly, that’s because he was chairman, and in the BBC that means occupying a higher space, miles away from the studio floor, locked in interminable meetings with regulators and worthies.
But also it’s to do with Grade himself. Get to know him and he’s not quite the man of the people he’s made out to be. He’s a charmer who also happens to be a chancer with a strong line in vanity. Neither is his track record as infallible as Brand Grade suggests it ought to be.
That’s not to say he isn’t popular. In an industry where ego and self-promotion abound, Grade is no worse than many of the mutual senior backslappers and self-congratulators. Staff, so long as they’re not on the end of his short temper, like him. He has that special ingredient that they love: natural charisma.
But just as there’s been a bout of revisionism at the BBC since the news of his departure, so too are questions being asked of ITV. The euphoria that greeted his arrival has given way to the realisation that, possibly, much of it was more about tweaking the nose of the mighty BBC by stealing its chairman than about grabbing Grade. Reports that he wasn’t even the broadcaster’s first choice, that a “dream team” of former chairman, Sir Christopher Bland and Dyke was preferred, have also helped dull the gloss.
In the City, Nicholas Bell at Bear Sterns marked his arrival by downgrading ITV shares. Daniel Kerven at UBS also rejected the notion of an instant Messiah effect, by cutting his earnings forecast. What bothers Bell and Kerven is Contract Rights Renewal, the mechanism insisted upon by the Competition Commission to protect advertisers when Carlton and Granada merged to form ITV in 2003. They would like to see the formula, which effectively limits ITV’s ability to charge for airtime if its audience is falling (which it is) removed as soon as possible.
Their scepticism is founded upon the belief that Grade will struggle to make an immediate impact where it matters most to investors — in profits. On CRR, little change, pending the outcome of the Ofcom inquiry into BSkyB’s ownership of 17.9 percent of ITV, is expected in the short-term. It’s not his thing. He’s not regarded as a details man (his predecessor, Charles Allen, was — and look where it got him). And at the BBC, for all his shmoozing, he misjudged the mood of politicians by pressing for an inflation-busting licence increase.
It’s a measure of how far ITV had fallen that the very fact of his hiring prompted such acclaim. Incidentals, such as his age — he is 63 — and his need to recruit a chief executive to succeed him, allowing Grade to take a non-executive role in two years, were swept aside. Also lost in the haze was his own patchy career history. In business terms, he has never lived up to his antecedents — his father was a successful theatrical agent, his uncles were the impresarios, Lew Grade (colossus of ATV, the ITV franchise) and Bernie, Lord Delfont (founder of the family entertainments empire) — or the promise of turning up to his first job, at the Daily Mirror, in his dad’s Bentley, registration LG1.
Indeed, there are those in the City who refuse to climb aboard the Grade bandwagon, preferring to recall how, in 1997, when Uncle Bernie brought him in to build-up First Leisure, owner of nightclubs, bowling alleys, gyms, marinas, a stake in a London theatre and the Blackpool Tower, his response was to dismantle the group.
Neither has he displayed the same touch for acquiring personal wealth as his forebears or some of his contemporaries — he missed out on the LWT shares bonanza (having left, ironically, to try and make more money elsewhere). And it’s this hunger — driven these days by a third marriage and a young family — that has kept him restless and constantly striving. It’s also given him his reputation as an opportunist.
In November 1987, he was at the BBC and about to become managing director of BBC Television. Instead, he jumped ship to Channel 4. In 1991, while running Channel 4, he provoked an internal storm by negotiating a £500,000 “loyalty payment” in return for agreeing to a five-year contract. He followed Channel 4 with First Leisure and then an undistinguished spell as chairman of Camelot (he was also a director of the New Millennium Experience Company, the builder of the Dome).
As BBC chairman, he refused to give up two shareholdings, in Hemscott, the corporate data firm and Pinewood Shepperton — a move that didn’t endear him to his purist, public service colleagues.
There’s no doubting, though, his ability to create an eye-catching TV schedule. At LWT, as director of programming, he seized live football from the BBC and gave the station its reputation for quality. At the BBC, the first time, he took the fight to ITV and won, winning plaudits for promoting EastEnders but also revitalising Panorama by changing its slot. At Channel 4, he steered a brilliant launch and for the rest of his reign, ensured the channel maintained its cutting edge.
All ITV, its staff, shareholders and viewers are asking now is that he does the same for them. He says he has no grand turnaround plan — and his critics believe him. It doesn’t matter. The love affair is in full flow. For now.
LIFE AND TIMES OF MICHAEL GRADE
–Born: 1943
–Education: St Dunstan’s College, London
–First job: trainee sports reporter, Daily Mirror
–Key career moves: worked in Grade Organisation as a theatrical agent; joined LWT as director of programmes (entertainment); president of Embassy Television in the US; controller of BBC; chief executive of Channel 4; chairman of First Leisure; chairman of BBC; executive chairman, ITV
–Hobbies: football (Charlton Athletic); sailing
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