Another oft-cited culprit for ITV’s decline is the development of technology, which has dramatically changed the “broadcasting environment”. In the 1970s and 1980s, ITV was in effect the only commercial TV channel in the UK. Today, there are more than 200 commercial TV stations, and although you may not have heard of, still less ever watched, 190 of them, the fact is that quite a few people do. The fragmentation of the audience for television means that there are fewer eyeballs left for ITV. The channel’s audience has inevitably declined as a consequence – and lower audiences for programmes mean lower revenues from advertisers.

Yet technological developments cannot explain ITV’s slump in quality either, because that started well before the relevant technological changes happened. The multi-channel universe in the UK is a recent phenomenon, whereas ITV’s decline was evident a decade ago. Again, evidence from America suggests that hundreds of channels do not make it impossible for any one of them to create high-quality drama. HBO, for example, has operated from its inception in competition with hundreds of other channels. But it has generated plenty of high-quality drama, from Sex and the City to The Sopranos, from Six Feet Under and The Wire to The Gathering Storm and John Adams.

The real catalyst for the decline of ITV was the Conservatives’ 1990 Broadcasting Act, which introduced auctions for each of the 15 regional franchises that made up the ITV network. The original plan was that money alone would be the deciding factor – whoever bid most would win – but at the last moment, a clause was inserted which allowed that, in “exceptional circumstances”, a broadcasting franchise could be awarded to a company that did not offer the highest price for it. The “exceptional circumstances” were that the company offering the lower bid would offer programmes of a much higher quality. Granada won its franchise on that basis, with a bid several million pounds lower than the biggest offer.

Ray Fitzwalter, who used to edit World In Action and who ran Granada’s current affairs department, documents what happened next in his book, The Dream that Died: the Rise and Fall of ITV. Panicked by the need to recoup the millions they had spent buying the franchise, Granada replaced the creative programme-makers who had run the company with cost-cutting businessmen. Gerry Robinson, whose experience was in running the catering group Compass, was hired as chief executive and given plenary powers. The news of that appointment led to a fax from John Cleese saying: “Why don’t you fuck off out of it you upstart caterer?” Robinson calmly replied: “Reading between the lines of your message, I detect that I am a greater fan of yours than you are of mine.”