Has Michael Grade's stewardship - as both CEO and Chairman - worked? (not really) and just how low can the ITV share price go? (the floor keeps receding; on Friday the 20th Feb it hit a new low of 23.25p).
ITV is not in good shape and I notice that the nationals have picked up today (Sunday) something I flagged up last week in my Broadcast column -this is my blog, so I can self-promote- about what assets might be on the sales block. As I said, ITV's DTT spectrum (through its ownership of SDN) is likely to yield more than selling Friends Reunited. But all this got me thinking about stewardship. Stewardship is something that should transcend self-preservation but often doesn't. It should mean readying the group you are stewarding into for the future after you the steward leave. I think Grade's stewardship score is pretty low. Not only has the dual role thing meant he has not had a proper counterbalance at a senior level but the way he has constructed the future handover of the CEO role by creating four top executive spots all vying for it, seems to me to be at best feudal and at worst a recipe for leadership disaster. The problem is that the senior barons up for the CEO role (Rupert Howell, Peter Fincham, John Cresswell and Lee Bartlett) don't want to piss off their current boss so no rocking the boat allowed, but once one of them is named CEO the other three will very likely jump ship cause they failed to get the top job. This will leave ITV lacking a strong senior team. This is not good stewardship. Perhaps this could be overlooked in a more buoyant market but in this abysmal one, it's making Grade look bad now and ITV look badly prepared for whatever future it may have.
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