Micheal Grade

Micheal Grade is the executive chairman of ITV after leaving the BBC. Grade had immediately made his aggressive intentions clear when ITV poached the rights to host live FA Cup games and England internationals from the BBC. When joing ITV he said Michael Grade said in the statement that it was a "great privilege" to be invited to run ITV.
"It has been a tough career decision to leave the BBC but it was an opportunity I could not resist, given my family's history in the founding of ITV and my own background at London Weekend Television," he also said.
"My first priority at ITV will be to support the team in accelerating the improvement in programming performance for our viewers and advertisers.

Micheal grade began his career with the daily mail in 1960 and was a sports columnist to 1964 to 1966.

Micheal Grade had joined the BBC in 1984, where as controller of BBC1 he scrapped Doctor Who and bought Neighbours. Neighbours, at first was purely an afternoon programme, however in a later given timeslot, on the advice of his daughter who was irritated by the fact that she could not watch it due to her being at school. This proved to be a successful scheduling decision that still remained in place until February 2008 before it moved to channel five.

On 28 November 2006, Grade and the BBC confirmed that he was to resign from his post with the BBC to replace Sir Peter Burst as Chairman and Charles Allen as Chief Executive of one of the companies which formed part of its commercial rival ITV. Micheal Grades main objectives while being at ITV were to bring more sucess to its digital channels whcih include ITV2,3 and 4

He became chief executive of Channel 4 in 1988.

Micheal Grade returned to the BBC in 2004 after seven years out of broadcasting, when he chaired film studio Pinewood-Shepperton and lottery operator Camelot.