Passage

The ills of  ITV are too numerous  to mention - everything from falling advertising  to  collapsing share price  and an  alarming pension deficit. The implications for many of the  ITV staff  are likely to become all too apparent  when ITV executive chairman Michael Grade reveals the company's annual results and plans  for the future.

Will 1,000 job  losses  be enough?

Often it  is  the  little things that bring home  what has  changed  at ITV - what has  been lost.

Lee Bartlett, managing  director of ITV Studios who succeeded Dawn Airey was as open and  honest as he could be in the circumstances  when he spoke  an a Broadcasting Press Guild  lunch yesterday.

It's taken Bartlett, Los Angeles born and bred, some time to come to terms with strange British  television concepts  such as regionalism, unnecessary layers of  management and people working in silos, not talking to  each other  and  fighting 50- year old  battles.

It was when he was questioned  about  the decision not to go  ahead with a  new version of A Passage To India  that the  new  realities at  ITV became all too clear.

Lee was  obviously involved  in the decision to  pull the plug on the production.  Great script.It just wasn't going to make enough  money.

Wonder if Lee  has  ever  seen Brideshead  Revisited or Jewel in the  Crown?

Such a question has to stay unasked. It  wouldn't  be fair. Alas such thoughts and comparisons come from a prehistoric era or British television when ITV had  a  virtual monopoly of television advertising.

Now  an ITV drama has  to sell big around  the world to be viable and and what may  or may  not have happened  in a  cave in India apparently just doesn't cut the  mustard any more.

Where's the format to exploit?

ends