An American-owned ITV would be even trashier than the one we have now

The merger of Carlton and Granada may seem a matter of little importance. Who cares if two ITV companies, neither of which any longer produces very distinguished programmes, should come together? But the development is in fact of some interest because it may well lead to an acquisition by an American behemoth of the new company, which will represent almost the whole of ITV. By themselves Carlton and Granada were too small and too unprofitable to tempt the likes of Viacom. The merged £4 billion company, once it has accomplished its cost savings, may be an alluring prize,

Twenty-five years ago, the 15-odd companies which then comprised ITV attracted some 50 per cent of television viewers. With the rise of BSkyB and the advent of Channel 4 and Channel 5, ITV has declined in importance so that its proportion of the television audience is now close to a quarter. The station that produced Brideshead Revisited and World in Action has fallen back on old staples like Coronation Street, game shows, third-rate American films and mostly unmemorable home-grown dramas. News at Ten, which in the 1980s regularly put BBC news in the shade, is now being shunted to 10.30. So one is hardly talking about a precious national jewel falling into American hands.

And yet one has to ask how the public interest would be served by such an acquisition. Why has the government introduced legislation which makes it possible? France or Germany, or indeed the United States, would not allow a foreign company to acquire a major terrestrial television network. But in Britain ITV is being fattened up for an American buyer, while Channel 5 may be reserved for New Labour’s friend Rupert Murdoch. Though in terms of popular culture we are well on the way to becoming a colony of the United States, there is no obvious justification for completing the process.