Member Info for WimbledonTom

Jed you can throw your support fully behind the Dame and the people who appointed her and allow her continue in the role but that is not going to lift the SP. Nobody likes the direction ITV has gone with her. The panic sale in 2022 was directly attributable to her decisions. Two years on we can see the figures and the investors who sold up at £1.20 were right to do so.

Time that everyone admitted she is a failure. New leadership required which is the best chance most of us have of recovering losses with ITV.

I commented on the dividend cut back in 2018. I did not express surprise. I merely said it was the only action she took in the first 9 months in the job. "I could have done that" was my words on here. That suggests it was the obvious step that needed to happen.

The net debt did not need to be reduced. Croziers policy of borrowing to fund aquisitions has paid off. The studios now generate the revenue and will be the biggest source of income into the future as advertising will only be weaker.

The share price fell back only in part because the wrong type of investor had moved to ITV. Granted there were many people (myself included) who bought in after the Sky buyout expecting similar here and the dividend brought the floating investors who want high returns.

The main reason that the SP has fallen though is the cautious and slow manner of the Dame. Minimal announcements. She does not inspire confidence. The retreat to £1.50 was possibly justified after the takeover hiatus calmed down and most realistic people came to the conclusion that Liberty were not looking for ownership. The fall from £1.50 or £1.30 after Covid is all down to the Dame's incompetence. March 2022.

There is no reason why the market fled from this share in 2022 other than the Dame's mismanagement of the move to streaming. Her calculations of revenue and viewing figures are far fetched. Double the real figures that we now see. The investment strategy she set out to the City was flawed. Those sums of money would have been better spent elsewhere. She has also neglected Croziers strategy of aquiring more studios to increase overall revenue.

ITV leadership and their choice of CEO has been wrong for the past 7 years. Crozier walked out on them as clearly they lack ambition. It is time to reset the whole McCall era and get back to being a company that invests money in studios and admits that the days of advertising and being the UKs n0.1 broadcaster are over.

Yes the botched sucession. Crozier caught the "big stakeholders" by surprise. He walked out.

They scrambled around cluelessly looking for a sucessor and rather than look for the most able candidate they just opted to pay over the odds for the "business woman of the year". False marketing that the City of London could see through straight away. The Share price fell from over £2 to £1.80 whilst we all waited to see who would get the job.

The lacklustre Dame could only start in January leaving ITV without a CEO for 6 months. The Share Price fell to £1.60

The Dame did precious little for the first 18months. Continued with Britbox as the streaming service that would be a world beater. The Share price fell to £1.10

Covid came and went and the arrogant Board actually took a pay cut. Their remuneration was then reinstated after Covid despite the SP being nothing like the £2 it was when their contracts were agreed. Nothing like variable rewards to keep your execs on their toes.

Then came ITVX announcement where someone had the genius idea to splash money out on commissions for a revamped ITV hub in the hope it would stem the movement of viewers away from tv. Analysts quickly saw through the figures and realised the only people getting rich were the studio heads and pals of Dame McCall. SP crashed.

7 years of falling Share Price and poor leadership. ITV starts to look like Manchester United. Change the personnel on the pitch and revamp and make changes but the real problem lies with the guys at the top doing the hiring and firing.

New direction needed. Complete clean out at the very top. Grow the studio business and put the free to air TV to bed. No way you can compete with BBC when nobody watches the ad breaks anymore and people will just not pay for slots.

Time to put everything behind pay walls. Then buy the sports events to put out on Britains most accessible platform and charge people pay to view . Charge the OAP's to get their crack fix each afternoon of watching the Chase for £1 a time or at least embed adverts into the programme (Parliament need to relax advertising restrictions).

March 2024 needs to be the moment ITV shifts towards a revenue driven future.

Do you remember the botched process of Crozier's leaving ITV and finding a replacement? It dragged on for months.

Adam Crozier announced his resignation and it seem to catch everyone unaware. As if the old guard at ITV were not happy with the moves he was making away from broadcaster and to creator of content with studios. They put their foot down and he walked?

They then took months to find a successor but just went for the one with the flashy label "Veuve Cliquot". A CEO with few ideas and happy to just roll over and do as the "stakeholders" wanted even if that meant the share price collapsed. It then took months for the chosen one to start. She then did nothing for the first 8 months.

David Moyes could run ITV and do a better job than "McCodswallop"

Like the UK government pays off debt?

No it could have been like a property portfolio. The Dame could have borrowed more, leveraged more debt with existing assets and grown the studio revenue to maybe 2x or 3x current level.

Instead, much to the City of Londons dismay she turned inward. Focussed on digital platforms which are never going to go global (Britbox failed to conquer the world). She diverted money to UKcentric content and Uk studios which will just fail to generate revenue. She neglected the international side of ITV. Played it safe and stuck to UK homegrown studios churning out bilge to the masses who are too busy watching youtube and tik tok.

She has no business vision. She is an administrator at best. More suited to being a politician sitting on pots of tax payers money and dishing it out to cronies.

Time to move this business forward. Studios and borrowing to turn this into a production company rather than a 2nd or 3rd choice broadcaster in an economy that has tanked.

So Crozier borrowed at a time when interest rates were low to purcahse studios that now make up the biggest driver of ITV revenue? The Dame by comparison has paid off debt, reduced payments to shareholders and failed to grow the business beyond where Crozier had already taken it. So stagnation under the Dame who has just lived off Croziers legacy. She has also diverted capital to commissioning shows and formats for UK auidences (Big brother, Limitless win and wheel of fortune) despite the knowledge that the viewing figures for these are crashing.

Maybe she should have continued Crozier's example and borrowed to buy more studios globally and sell that content to US and overseas markets as that is where the real money is. UK economy is doomed since Brexit and the Brexiteers all got rich by handing contracts out during covid.

Shocking!!!! If the nations favourite Phil was paying out 100,000 to silence the young man he groomed from age 15, an admission that he had done something wrong, then I wonder if the young runners legal team went to ITV's legal department with Phil's agreement to pay damages and aslo asked that they pay?

https://www.gbnews.com/celebrity/eamonn-holmes-mocks-phillip-schofield-nda-payment

ITV leadership are still just covering up and lying to everyone.

How ITV has even lost its ascendancy over the BBC when it comes to viewers for all analogue and digital. Last weeks top shows and my memory was seeing ITV with Corrie dominant in the ratings. Tastes have changed. ITV has failed to adapt to audiences.

https://www.barb.co.uk/viewing-data/most-viewed-programmes/

BBC1 Death in Paradise

BBC1 Call the midwife

BBC1 Gladiators

ITV1 Trigger Point

BBC1 Silent Witness Tuesday

BBC1 The Apprentice

ITV1 After the Flood

BBC1 Michael McIntyre

BBC1 Silent witness Monday

BB1 Antiques Roadshow

So 2 out of 10 vs the BBC. How on earth did BBC get Gladiators when it used to be prime time ITV viewing in the 90s? I was watching Palace the other day and the kids behind me in the stands were saying how they loved the new show and discussing the different gladiators. It is an ideal format for placing adverts in between the different events.

Pokerchips overall revenue has held up despite the loss of viewers from linear tv offering.

The transition to ITVX came 4 years into the Dame's tenure. She threw figures out that are nowhere near close to what we are now seeing. The market analysts saw that in March 2022 and it resulted in a catastophic sell off from £1.20 which already reflected that ITV was in transition. Crozier started the transition by accumulating studios and creating different platforms. The Dame has just rebranded them and changed the AI and algos behind them.

None of this was predictable. A decline from £2 down to 58p and losing FTSE 100 status was all avoidable with a credible Board and CEO. The balance sheet is healthy. What is in doubt is the future and if ITV can continue this level of revenue. It is years behind its rivals in streaming and is about the 5th or 6th choice of streamer when it used to be the channel of choice 20 years ago.

Transition need a bold and confident leadership that admit mistakes and show they know how to correct them. 6 years of falling share price under the Dame demonstrates she has no idea how to get this back on track. She needs to recognise her failings and resign. CEO of H&M. President of Hungary are better women than Carolyn.

You need insiders at ITV to start speaking up in internal forums or feeding up to management that it is time to go. They are quiet as they fear for their jobs but they read this forum and have leaked information here before. Information was posted here about the Easyjet mistress which undermined McCall's claims that she wants to create a safe environment for reporting concerns. They also posted about the virtual AGM 2 years ago and directed me to the online questions submission where I was able to get in the question asking Carolyn to resign.

So we have some dissenters on the payroll who dislike the culture of cronyism and failure at the top. In combination with them we might find a way to circumvent the firewalls and communicate direct to the Chairman and other people who could effect real change.

Otherwise it is Ofcom, Dame Caroline Dineage and Parliament. They seem loathed to get involved and recognise that they overstepped their remit last May by summoning a CEO of a PLC before Parliament.

Questions need answering and the Dame refuses any dialogue with shareholders and the city.

You know for sure that they did not hold 3% before last week? The full 5% landed in the last few weeks?

Rather than emailing the CEO and Baord who care nothing for the shareholders can I perhaps suggest that we put together a list of the majority shareholders in ITV. The biggest 10 who possibly have a 50%+ ownership.

Then we all start emailing them direct asking them to pool together to oust this Board of Directors and bring in people with real business acumen.

Is the Silchester stake a new stake? Is it not just the case that they went over 5% and it becomes public? So they possibly only bought a few million raising their overall stake to 120million? If 120 MILLION had been bought in the last month then this share really is falling fast.

You derserve a Damehood. CBE, MBE and all that for just taking a salary that is proportionate to company valuation and profit. Some stratas of UK society expect millions whilst they watch cricket all summer.

So she was getting 7m bonuses at Easyjet but chose to come to ITV where she could be a slacker as they do not link remuneration to performance.

God somebody at ITV messed up when they handed her a contract to do nothing.

Https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/dec/05/easyjet-ceo-carolyn-mccall-7m-bonus

"An easyJet spokesman said: “EasyJet’s remuneration for directors is heavily weighted towards variable pay, dependent on performance. This ensures that there is a clear link between the value created for shareholders and the amount paid to directors."

The valuation of Easyjet is round about 4 billion. Where it was when the Dame left. She moved to the bigger company only to bring its valuation down below Easyjets. Pretty spectacular considering covid and Easyjet could not fly for long periods and they are still not back to full numbers. ITV by comparison still brought in revenue during lockdown.

Somehow I do not think Easyjet would re-hire the Dame today. Even Guardian group would say no to her current salary demands.

Drastic solution needed. Nobody is listening to us small guys. Emails are easy to ignore. Direct action is needed.

I will streak naked across the Live dancing on ice final :)

Carolyn Out

12 months ago the Share price was 90p.

24 months ago the Share price was 120p

Pre Covid this was 150p

Crozier resignation this was 200p.

When does the rot stop because for 6 years people have been promising that the Share Price will lift under Dame Carolyn's guidance.

I think it is the silence from the ITV leadership that speaks volumes to the city. They should be out doing interviews and the business bulletins explaining how this can only improve and yet they do not. They are too busy instructing ITV payroll department to offload their personal shares before the price drops to 50p.