21st Sep 2005 09:27
ITV PLC21 September 2005 21st September 2005 ITV announces new senior line-up to position itself for growth in the digital age ITV announced today that it is putting in place a new top team and structure toposition itself for growth in the digital age, effective immediately. This willenable ITV to focus more closely on the needs of its viewers and advertisers. ITV has successfully delivered the merger, built a thriving multi-channelbusiness and doubled its interim profits during the past two years. As ITV movesinto the next phase of its development it has three strategic objectives: tobuild its broadcasting business; to grow its production businesses and todevelop new revenue streams. In order to achieve this, the divisional structure has been replaced and anumber of new roles have been created including: Commercial Director; Directorof Television; Director of ITV Production and Director of ITV Worldwide. Theseroles, together with those of the recently-appointed Jeff Henry as Director ofITV Consumer and Clive Jones leading ITV Regions and News, will drive thebusiness forward. Henry Staunton, Finance Director and Mick Desmond, CEO of ITV's BroadcastingDivision, will leave the Company. It is intended that Henry Staunton will stepdown when a successor is appointed. • Ian McCulloch becomes Commercial Director. All of ITV's sales and marketing expertise will be brought together under his leadership. Ian is currently COO of the Broadcasting division and one of the architects of ITV's successful digital channels, • Simon Shaps becomes Director of Television. Simon, currently CEO of Granada, will assume overall responsibility for the commissioning and scheduling of all ITV channels. Ian and Simon's teams will work together to ensure that ITV delivers the most valuable audiences to advertisers and the most attractive programming to viewers. News, as a critical component of ITV's offering to viewers, will now be fully integrated into the channels team. Clive Jones remains CEO of the ITV Regions and News Group and will have additional responsibility for Sports production, Broadcast Resources and Compliance. The regional MDs will continue to report into Clive. • ITV's production arm, Granada, which currently produces much of ITV's most successful programming, will be renamed ITV Production. The Granada brand will be used for international and third party productions in the UK. John Whiston, presently Director of Drama, Children's Arts and Features at Granada, will become Acting Head. • ITV Worldwide will be responsible for all international production and third party sales. It will comprise Granada International, Granada Ventures and Granada's international production businesses. William Medlicott, the former COO of Carlton International and currently the Finance Director of Granada, will become Acting Head until a permanent appointment is made • Jeff Henry as Director of ITV Consumer will continue to be responsible for exploiting opportunities outside of free-to-air advertising in mobile, broadband, and other new media services. This team has already begun delivering an exciting range of new consumer products and services such as ITV mobile and ITV local. ITV will now begin a search process for the new positions of Finance Director,and Directors of ITV Production and TV Worldwide. Charles Allen, CEO of ITV, said: "ITV is now ready to move into its next phase of growth. Today's changes meanthat all parts of our business will now be able to work together moreeffectively. The new structure will ensure that our primary focus is on theneeds of viewers and advertisers, both in the UK and internationally." "We have the right structure and the right people in key roles to drive thebusiness forward. I am confident that we will be able to attract the besttalent from within ITV or externally to the exciting new positions we havecreated". Enquiries: ITV Tel: 020 7620 1620 Brigitte Trafford Jim Godfrey Citigate Dewe Rogerson Tel: 020 7638 9571 Simon Rigby Notes to Editors: When ITV plc was formed in February 2004 it had three principal objectives: toimplement the merger successfully, deliver significant cost savings, and tobegin modernising the regulatory framework in which it operates. These havebeen more than achieved. Operating profits have doubled in the last two years;£120 million of cost savings have been delivered, ahead of both expectations andschedule. Significant progress has also been made on with regulation. ITV's licence payments will reduce from £215 million in 2004 to £4 million in2012. It has raised more than £276 million to date from the sale of non-coreassets. ITV has recently announced a range of new digital initiatives that strengthensthe Company's position in a digital environment, including Freesat (a jointventure with the BBC), ITV mobile and ITV Local, the latter two both developedby ITV's consumer division to help drive new revenue streams to the company. BIOGRAPHIES Simon Shaps has more than 25 years experience in the TV industry working acrossall genres, producing every kind of programme from pre-school to high-end drama,documentaries and current affairs, ambitious reality to lifestyle. He started his career as a researcher and rose through the ranks to becomeDirector of Programmes at both LWT and Granada Television, he also ran GranadaInternational Factual and was Managing Director of Granada's Broadband division.Following the restructure of Granada in 2001, Simon became Managing Director andthen Chief Executive of Granada. He is the current chair of the CulturalDiversity Network and was chair of the Royal Television Society from 2002-2004. He has been responsible for the largest and most successful commercial TVproducer in the UK creating more than 3,500 hours of original programming eachyear and producing seven of the top 10 highest rating (non sport) programmes onBritish television. Some of the programmes he has responsibility for includeCoronation Street, the Paul O'Grady show, I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Parkinson, Tonight with Trevor McDonald andhigh-end dramas such as Bloody Sunday, Dirty Filthy Love and the factual dramathe Murder of Stephen Lawrence. Under Simon Granada has produced programmes forevery major UK channel including Channel 4's award-winning Sex Traffic and TheDeal in addition to David Starkey's Monarchy and the quiz show Countdown. Forthe BBC, Granada produces University Challenge and What the Papers Say. He also has responsibility for Granada's distribution business which represents35,000 hours of programming from leading independent producers and Granada's ownproduction teams in 155 territories. Under his leadership, Granada Internationalhas sold more than 25,000 hours of programming so far this year, including 1,240to the US the world's most competitive TV market. He also created GranadaAmerica, Germany and Australia which have all had massive hits on the leadingnetworks across a variety of genres. Ian McCulloch joined LWT in 1980 in the sales division and rose to becomeOperations Director for Granada Enterprises. In 2000 he became CommercialDirector of Granada Broadband looking at revenue opportunities in propertiessuch as ITV-F1.com, Liverpool.com and Arsenal.com. In 2001 he moved across toBroadcasting as Director of Operations with responsibility for Granada'sinvestment in ITV. That role developed into Managing Director of Operations forITV Broadcasting. In 2005, he was promoted to COO of ITV Broadcasting. John Whiston had been BBC Manchester's Head of Youth and Entertainment Featuresfor four years when he joined Yorkshire Tyne Tees in 1998 which had just beentaken over by Granada. In 2001 John became Director of Programmes for the wholeof Granada in the North, and for Coronation Street which in the last year hasdelivered shares of greater than 60% on 45 occasions and is now watched by 1.4mmore people per week than when he took it over. In 2002 John became Director of Drama, Children's, Arts and Features. He hasbeen responsible for all of Granada's drama output (more than 350 hours perannum) which includes Coronation Street & Emmerdale, both of which are enjoyinghuge critical acclaim and ratings success. During his time at Yorkshire he hasalso overseen the most successful single dramas on ITV including the Emmy awardwinning Lost For Words, The Innocent with Caroline Quentin, the hit comedy BoozeCruise, the controversial drama documentary Shipman and the ever popular Touchof Frost which has won innumerable awards in the past five years. He also looksafter series such as Poirot, Miss Marple, William & Mary, The Last Detective andBlue Murder. William Medlicott joined Carlton in 1994. He has played a key role in thedevelopment of the Carlton International distribution business and became ChiefOperating Officer of the Carlton Content business in April 2002. He wasappointed Finance Director of Granada Production last year. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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