Interview: Chris Shaw, Channel Five (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
THERE is only one story this week percolating the corridors of ITN's Gray's Inn Road headquarters: how in hell could Chris Shaw have so let down his old team? "Traitor" is one of the more polite terms being heard; "Murdoch's stooge" is another. For Shaw - a former ITN executive best known until now for making Kirsty Young stand up to read the news - has gained a wholly more controversial claim to fame. By switching Channel Five's news contract from ITN to Sky News, the 46-year-old controller of news has finally given Rupert Murdoch a foothold in British terrestrial television.
The deal, worth almost £8 million to Sky for each of the next five years, is a serious blow to morale at ITN. If Sky can establish itself on Five as a credible non-satellite news service, what is to stop Murdoch taking the ITV contract when it next comes up in 2008? Officially, ITN's chief executive, Mark Wood, is being diplomatic about the loss, insisting only that "we did not believe we could provide the level of quality needed at any price". But behind the scenes, senior staff are furious. "What have we done wrong?" asks one executive, before replying: "Absolutely nothing. Chris says we've done a fantastic job, audiences are up to 900,000 for the flagship 5.30pm bulletin, and the quality has improved.
We'd like to know how Sky can offer the level of service they want at a significantly lower price. Where's that shortfall being met?" In his Covent Garden office, Shaw - a former News at Ten editor - certainly professes "immense pride" for what ITN achieved in its 400 hours a year of programmes for Five. "But I haven't based my decision on the past," he says, a little cautiously after a week of attacks from his former colleagues as well as unions. "This is about the future.
Moving to Sky was the brave decision, because frankly it would have been a hell of a lot easier to stay with the tried and tested provider." Shaw simply decided that Sky News will provide "a better value service for us" over the next few years. "That means not just price, but quality," he explains. "When you're a small player, you try to leverage as much out of your suppliBy David Rowan
ers as possible, and you look at their incentives. And if we're Sky's territorial showcase, I figure they'll have an extra incentive to perform well." He also rejects the current " conspiracy theories" suggesting that Dawn Airey and Nick Milligan, formerly at Five and now at BSkyB, were instrumental in the decision to give Sky News the contract.
But did Sky set its bid so low as to make a loss? The company denies this, but ITN insiders suggest that the Sky bid was "at least a million a year" lower than their own lowest bid, and that BSkyB must be subsidising the cost. Shaw insists that this is not the case. "Sky's deal is a good deal for them. ITN didn't offer us the best price, true, but nor did they offer us a better service. There were things ITN could offer us five years ago that it can't today - access to a rolling news service, for a start," he says.
"Sky, meanwhile, will give us unrestricted access to its 24-hour news operation, access to every frame of its pictures, and access to its journalists too." Kirsty Young will remain the face of Five News, but the jobs of the 60-member team are uncertain. Shaw says that he will honour his "legal and moral" obligations, but will not be drawn further. "There are a lot of talented people who work at ITN, and I'd like some of them to carry on working for Five." He accepts that ITN is "quite an unhappy place" at present, which he says upsets him. "I only ever wanted to work at ITN, and I've spent twothirds of my broadcasting career there," he says. But he does not accept that his decision will imperil the organisation's survival.
LOOK, nothing stays the same," he says. " Commercial priorities change, ownership changes. My personal feeling is that ITN's problems really began seriously when ITV decided that News at Ten was a flexible friend that could be shunted around the schedules. You could say it's a self-inflicted wound." Shaw, who is married to Martha Kearney, the BBC presenter of Woman's Hour and Newsnight, meanwhile has other matters to be concerned with. His brief also covers the channel's documentary output, and he has just signed Alastair Campbell to interview a series of "major figures from the worlds of politics, business and sport".
Campbell will also feature in an " observational documentary" - with no right of editorial veto. "Sure, this is a man used to controlling things, but he's also unbelievably passionate, and there are times he's surprisingly frank and disarmingly candid.
And not always to his advantage." He is also keen to point to the channel's more serious-minded documentaries, which he says belie its reputation for tacky sex shows.
"Factual programmes with sexual subjects are a legitimate area of factual entertainment. It's all about quality and intelligence ..." And, I suggest, ratings. "Yes, ratings help.
But here at Five we've cut out the cynicism and boosted the quality.
We've done some pretty seriousminded social affairs stuff - feral teenage gangs, investigations into care for the elderly. Not exactly riproaring topics. There are not that many executives in British television who can buy G String Divas one minute, and then go out and commission a documentary about care homes." As for news, he believes that Five has become distinctive through "clarity, accessibility and directness, and making sure viewers are not made to feel stupid" - whether ITN or Sky happens to be the vehicle. And what about its newsreaders' habit of perching against their desks? "Yes, I take the rap for perching.
But I would like to be remembered for something rather more solid than that."
(Evening Standard, March 17 2004)
THERE is only one story this week percolating the corridors of ITN's Gray's Inn Road headquarters: how in hell could Chris Shaw have so let down his old team? "Traitor" is one of the more polite terms being heard; "Murdoch's stooge" is another. For Shaw - a former ITN executive best known until now for making Kirsty Young stand up to read the news - has gained a wholly more controversial claim to fame. By switching Channel Five's news contract from ITN to Sky News, the 46-year-old controller of news has finally given Rupert Murdoch a foothold in British terrestrial television.
The deal, worth almost £8 million to Sky for each of the next five years, is a serious blow to morale at ITN. If Sky can establish itself on Five as a credible non-satellite news service, what is to stop Murdoch taking the ITV contract when it next comes up in 2008? Officially, ITN's chief executive, Mark Wood, is being diplomatic about the loss, insisting only that "we did not believe we could provide the level of quality needed at any price". But behind the scenes, senior staff are furious. "What have we done wrong?" asks one executive, before replying: "Absolutely nothing. Chris says we've done a fantastic job, audiences are up to 900,000 for the flagship 5.30pm bulletin, and the quality has improved.
We'd like to know how Sky can offer the level of service they want at a significantly lower price. Where's that shortfall being met?" In his Covent Garden office, Shaw - a former News at Ten editor - certainly professes "immense pride" for what ITN achieved in its 400 hours a year of programmes for Five. "But I haven't based my decision on the past," he says, a little cautiously after a week of attacks from his former colleagues as well as unions. "This is about the future.
Moving to Sky was the brave decision, because frankly it would have been a hell of a lot easier to stay with the tried and tested provider." Shaw simply decided that Sky News will provide "a better value service for us" over the next few years. "That means not just price, but quality," he explains. "When you're a small player, you try to leverage as much out of your suppliBy David Rowan
ers as possible, and you look at their incentives. And if we're Sky's territorial showcase, I figure they'll have an extra incentive to perform well." He also rejects the current " conspiracy theories" suggesting that Dawn Airey and Nick Milligan, formerly at Five and now at BSkyB, were instrumental in the decision to give Sky News the contract.
But did Sky set its bid so low as to make a loss? The company denies this, but ITN insiders suggest that the Sky bid was "at least a million a year" lower than their own lowest bid, and that BSkyB must be subsidising the cost. Shaw insists that this is not the case. "Sky's deal is a good deal for them. ITN didn't offer us the best price, true, but nor did they offer us a better service. There were things ITN could offer us five years ago that it can't today - access to a rolling news service, for a start," he says.
"Sky, meanwhile, will give us unrestricted access to its 24-hour news operation, access to every frame of its pictures, and access to its journalists too." Kirsty Young will remain the face of Five News, but the jobs of the 60-member team are uncertain. Shaw says that he will honour his "legal and moral" obligations, but will not be drawn further. "There are a lot of talented people who work at ITN, and I'd like some of them to carry on working for Five." He accepts that ITN is "quite an unhappy place" at present, which he says upsets him. "I only ever wanted to work at ITN, and I've spent twothirds of my broadcasting career there," he says. But he does not accept that his decision will imperil the organisation's survival.
LOOK, nothing stays the same," he says. " Commercial priorities change, ownership changes. My personal feeling is that ITN's problems really began seriously when ITV decided that News at Ten was a flexible friend that could be shunted around the schedules. You could say it's a self-inflicted wound." Shaw, who is married to Martha Kearney, the BBC presenter of Woman's Hour and Newsnight, meanwhile has other matters to be concerned with. His brief also covers the channel's documentary output, and he has just signed Alastair Campbell to interview a series of "major figures from the worlds of politics, business and sport".
Campbell will also feature in an " observational documentary" - with no right of editorial veto. "Sure, this is a man used to controlling things, but he's also unbelievably passionate, and there are times he's surprisingly frank and disarmingly candid.
And not always to his advantage." He is also keen to point to the channel's more serious-minded documentaries, which he says belie its reputation for tacky sex shows.
"Factual programmes with sexual subjects are a legitimate area of factual entertainment. It's all about quality and intelligence ..." And, I suggest, ratings. "Yes, ratings help.
But here at Five we've cut out the cynicism and boosted the quality.
We've done some pretty seriousminded social affairs stuff - feral teenage gangs, investigations into care for the elderly. Not exactly riproaring topics. There are not that many executives in British television who can buy G String Divas one minute, and then go out and commission a documentary about care homes." As for news, he believes that Five has become distinctive through "clarity, accessibility and directness, and making sure viewers are not made to feel stupid" - whether ITN or Sky happens to be the vehicle. And what about its newsreaders' habit of perching against their desks? "Yes, I take the rap for perching.
But I would like to be remembered for something rather more solid than that."
(Evening Standard, March 17 2004)
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