Susan Boyle gives Grade bargaining power

Have ITV executive chairman Michael Grade and Google patched up their differences? Grade famously called the American firm's video-sharing website YouTube a "parasite" for leeching off British-made content and not pumping any of its revenues back into the UK production sector. However, Grade today said he had held a meeting with Google chief executive Eric Schmidt – and Britain's Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle was responsible for bringing them together. "Who wasn't amazed by the speed and impact of the Susan Boyle phenomenon?" Grade today told the Institute of Economic Affairs future of broadcasting conference today. "Over 200 million hits on YouTube had Eric Schmidt, the computer scientist who founded Google, calling to see if he could possibly come over to get a meeting with me in my office. Thank you, Susan!" Monkey would have paid good money to be a fly on the wall in that meeting...