Sectors: Media

Michael Grade, the former chairman of ITV, has been ruffling a few feathers in media circles of late. In a lecture at Magdalene College, Cambridge, Grade argued that the licence fee should be used to fund broadcasters including Channel 4 and suggested that the BBC faces a ‘long, slow decline in audience share’.

He cited threats including increasing competition both from multichannel providers such as Sky TV and the explosion of content on the internet. Grade, who is soon to be made a Tory peer, was himself chairman of the BBC from 2004 to 2006, which is why his comments carry particular weight.

One AIM-quoted concern that has felt the impact of the decline in BBC fortunes is UBC Media, which produces an array of content broadcast across BBC stations including Radio 2 and Radio 4. Losses widened from £258,000 to £622,000 on sales of £2.1 million (2009: £1.9 million) during the six months to September at UBC, which saw the amount of turnover received from the BBC reduce by 9 per cent to £0.99 million (2009: £1.09 million).

Elsewhere on AIM, Digital Marketing Group reported a further profits slide in its interim results to September, down 13.6 per cent to £598,000, on sales reduced by 9 per cent to £22.5 million. Chairman Stephen Davidson attributed the disappointing financials to a ‘difficult and uncertain’ market backdrop, while CEO Ben Langdon pointed out that this uncertainty is ‘delaying our return to significant growth’.