When he has wanted to make a dramatic gesture, Michael Grade has often looked to football. It helped make him a household name in the 1970s and he is clearly hoping that it will prolong the feelgood factor at ITV in 2007.
Grade's ITV and the Football Association are today unveiling a £425m four-year deal for the FA Cup and England matches. ITV is paying £275m, with the rest being stumped up by the new kid on the pay-TV block, Setanta.
Back in 1978 the sums involved were rather different. Grade's London Weekend Television snatched Match of the Day from the BBC for the princely amount of £5m over three years. He was forced to give it back, but it forced a compromise deal on other sports rights.
In his autobiography, It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time, Grade says:
"Had I not been naturally diffident I might have become big-headed as I read the Daily Express which trumpeted: 'there is a new phrase in the language of television power these days. It says, "Whatever Mike Grade wants, Mike Grade gets." His stunning £5m ITV soccer coup is seen as merely another example of the ruthless brilliance which has made him a giant in the industry at 35'...One by one he is knocking down the Beeb's institutions. First Morecambe and Wise, then Bruce Forsyth, now the biggest scalp of all, Match of the Day."
How about 2007? As my colleague Chris Tryhorn says: "Snatching the rights from the BBC and BSkyB represents an audacious coup by ITV executive chairman Michael Grade - but it is also an expensive gamble."
It is certainly a bold move. It is also an expensive move. With so much football on TV these days and with the competition so great, the cost is high and the audiences not as big as they were. However, they are the sort of audiences that ITV advertisers have traditionally looked for: ABC1 male-heavy. Football will also help fill some of ITV's weakest scheduling points - weekend afternoons.
But will it help make ITV the new home of football? Has the FA Cup already become the poor relation of the football family (After the World Cup (still be shared with the BBC, who inevitably get more viewers for the head-to-head games), the European Championship (ditto), the Premiership (Sky and BBC), the Champions League (ITV and Sky))?
The deal does however help out Little Jimmy Murdoch in one key respect. Despite Sky's large shareholding in ITV, the terrestrial broadcaster teamed up with Setanta to beat it. That must weaken the anti-competition case being trumpeted by Virgin Media.
One thing is certain. ITV and Setanta are going to need the fortunes of the England team to improve. Will Grade be calling for Steve McClaren's head?
