Service contracts
PUBLIC service broadcasting (defined by its practitioners as 'What we do, old boy') has some odd effects on those who do it. Look at TVS, the company with the plum franchise for the South of England. Last year its chairman — James Gatward announced with much trumpeting that he had arranged to take over an American production company, MTM, for £190 mil- lion. The takeover has proved a disaster. MTM has run into the red, will lose $25 million this year, and has dragged down TVS's own figures. The TVS share price has almost halved. And what has happened to Mr Gatward? He has had his salary doubled, to £250,000 a year on a five-year contract, back-dated to January. This, he says, is by way of recognising all the extra work he now has to do. I suppose that, with the share price so depressed, TVS could not follow the example of London Weekend. There, the chairman and other supposedly key executives have been en- couraged in their work by being awarded a large slice of the company's equity. It is easy to see why the independent television companies are lobbying so hard against the Government's plans to reform the system and make them compete for their franch- ise. This might lead to public service broadcasting being invaded by Thatcherite values, such as greed.
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