My verdict on the Grade era

The profpurvis blog returns after a six month break spent travelling in Australia and New Zealand and working on a family history/memoir. The Voice of the Listener and Viewer invited me to speak at their 2026 spring conference in London. The session was called ‘Poisoned chalice ? What awaits the new chair of Ofcom?’. I took the opportunity to offer my review of Lord Grade’s handling of one of the major issues during his four years in the post. Here is the text of my opening remarks.

Today, 30th May, is Lord Grade’s last day as Chair of Ofcom. Yesterday he sent a message to staff saying Ofcom seems to be “unfazed whatever challenges come our way”. I would like to talk about one issue where Ofcom has definitely been ‘fazed’, to the extent that it lost a judicial review in the High Court, its first defeat over content standards.

So far there have been five chairs of Ofcom, and one interim. I worked with them all at some point in their careers at Ofcom or elsewhere.On the Ofcom website there is a section about the role of the Chair with a list of four specific responsibilities. The first is ‘Leading the Board in formulating Ofcom’s strategy for discharging our statutory duties’.

So let us be in no doubt about the ability of the chair to influence other board members, the Chief Executive and other senior staff.

What made Lord Grade’s appointment unique as a permanent chair was that he came from the content business: the Daily Mirror, London Weekend Television, the BBC, Channel Four and ITV. A formidable CV. Back in the days when I was the Editor of ITN and he was a non-executive director of the company, Michael Grade, as he was then, would often be the first to phone with congratulations after a successful News at Ten.   

In later times I observed him at work, sometimes at close hand, inside Channel Four, the BBC and ITV. Such was his experience and indeed his fame that he set out his own views with greater and greater certainty while others around the table became increasingly nervous about challenging him. I believe that is the story behind the last four years of Ofcom policy-making about broadcast standards. Not about specific case judgments but in that overworked Ofcom phrase ‘the direction of travel’

If you ask me for evidence let me remind you what he said on this very platform. The issue was whether politicians like Nigel Farage should be allowed to present on programmes on GB News about the news stories of the day. Ofcom’s decision, made on Lord Grade’s watch, was that these were not news programmes which politicians could not present but current affairs programmes which, in Ofcom’s view they could. Under pressure Ofcom agreed to do audience research on whether viewers could tell the difference between the two genres.

If asked about this issue in a Q and A here at the VLV most Ofcom chairs would have said something like: ‘Well my colleagues at Ofcom have set out the reasoning for our decision but of course we want to hear what this new piece of audience research shows.” 

Lord Grade was not a normal Ofcom chair. Even while the research was still underway, Lord Grade was in no doubt what it would reveal. “I don’t think it’s very difficult what is a news programme and a current affairs programme, I don’t think that’s difficult at all. It’s not confusing at all”. When the audience research was finally published it proved that the Ofcom Chairman was wrong, the audience was confused. IPSOS said that viewers “struggled to consistently [tell the difference] in practice”. 

Ofcom did not change its position even when separate independent research, commissioned from YouGov by Cardiff University, funded by the AHRC, found public opposition to allowing politicians to front current affairs programmes.

Last autumn Ofcom promised to ‘explore conducting further research into audience attitudes towards news and current affairs on TV and radio’. But in Ofcom’s current annual plan mention of current affairs has melted away.

In a valedictory interview with the Daily Telegraph Lord Grade said: “I would die in a ditch rather than have Ofcom telling broadcasters who they can and can’t employ as presenters”. Actually you already do tell them Lord Grade, you tell them they can’t use politicians as news readers. And Ofcom has even been to court to defend that principle.

So what lies ahead for the ‘preferred candidate’ for the next chair, Sir Ian Cheshire. Its not an easy task when your predecessor has been so clearly personally associated with a controversial policy. Especially when the Culture Secretary,Lisa Nandy, said back in September that the Government ‘intend to act’. How exactly they will do that has never been explained. 

My own view, adapting those words from the Ofcom website, is that Sir Ian should lead the Board in reviewing Ofcom’s strategy for discharging its statutory duties in the area of broadcast standards. This comes as Ofcom is already beginning a review of the future of broadcast regulation. That review and the associated projects are listed in the Annual Plan under the heading ‘Media we trust and value’.

So the new Chair has plenty of options for bringing fresh thinking and leadership to this important area. I wish him good luck.