ITV supremo Michael Grade last week told the House Of Lords he wants BSkyB's stake in third channel broadcaster cut to well below 10%.
As you'll remember, the Sky company took a 17.9% stake in ITV last year, just as Virgin Media, then still NTL/Telewest, was expressing an interest in merging with ITV to create a broadcasting powerhouse that could take on Sky.
Although the purchase didn't contravene media ownership rules it has caused concern at the Competition Commission (not to mention at ITV and Virgin Media) and they are still looking into how to deal with the whole thing. The Commission may, as yet, force Sky to sell some or all of its ITV stake.
Grade was questioned about the issue last week and he said that Sky's interests in ITV "would not necessarily, as a trading competitor, be in line with the overwhelming majority of our retail and institutional shareholders".
ITV has previously told the Commission it ideally wants Sky to be forced to sell its entire stake, but Grade was last week asked if he would be happy if the stake was simply cut, say to 10%. While the ITV chief didn't refuse to accept anything but a complete sale, he did say "we would like to see it well below 10%".