Dyke attacks media over TV’s ‘grim year’

Greg Dyke, the former BBC director general and ITV suitor, has criticised the state of the TV industry and says that despite talk of an ITV renaissance, the broadcaster is “still struggling”.

Dyke was talking ahead of the Marketing Week Effectiveness Awards 2007, which he compered last night . “ITV is still struggling and has done for most of this decade,” he says, speaking exclusively to Marketing Week. He points to a share price of under £1 – less than the 130p offered by the Dyke-led private equity bid for a “sizeable minority” in the broadcaster last year.

“TV has had a pretty grim year,” says Dyke. He refers to the furore over the “fake” naming of the Blue Peter cat as an example of overblown media reaction, along with the effective ousting of BBC1 controller Peter Fincham over “Crowngate.”

Dyke, outlining the growing importance of marketing in business and broadcasting, says: “In a two or three channel world, it didn’t need marketing, but in a multichannel, digital world it becomes all-important.”

He also highlighted the success of five-year-old Freeview, now the UK’s biggest digital broadcasting platform.