Michael Grade, who last week announced he would step back as Executive Chairman of ITV, and become the much less time consuming Non-Executive Chairman of the telly firm, may, in fact, leave the broadcaster altogether, or so say some in the investment community.
Officially Grade will find a new recruit to become Chief Executive and head up the struggling telly firm on a day to day basis, but continue to chair the firm's board of directors. But reports suggest he may depart the company altogether once a CEO is found.
That said, most city types say that they are not pushing Grade out, and that, while they welcome the announcement that a new CEO will now be found, add that they didn't even insist on that development, suggesting the decision comes from the ITV chief himself.
He always said he'd appoint a CEO and take a back seat role eventually, but some hadn't expected him to do so quite so soon. But some city types said last week that Grade's main job was to persuade government to lift many of ITV's public service obligations, and that given that it looks likely that will happen later this year the time is right to bring someone new in. Grade has also overseen considerable cost cutting, and it arguably makes sense once the downsizing is complete to bring in a new guy to take the streamlined broadcaster forward.
Among those already being touted for the ITV CEO job are former Channel 4 boss Michael Jackson, former BSkyB chief Tony Ball, and current Communications Minister Stephen Carter.