When ITV’s board extended Michael Grade’s executive chairmanship by a year in February, with a new management line-up beneath him, one veteran industry adviser likened the situation to the court politics of a Tudor monarch.

With four executives – Dawn Airey, John Cresswell, Peter Fincham and Rupert Howell – each competing for the chief executive job when it comes up at the end of 2010, he argued, the barons would be too busy to threaten the king.