Compare that with what ITV offers today. It bears an uncomfortably close resemblance to the darkest days of American commercial television: a depressing diet of formulaic gameshows, cop-shows and soap operas. Today on ITV, there are no serious current affairs documentaries in peak-time – in fact, there are arguably no current affairs programmes at all on the network, ever. Tonight with Trevor McDonald has in fact been almost exclusively a compilation of celebrity interviews and consumer items. No politician has anything to fear from that quarter – any more than any minister need tremble at the thought of The Jeremy Kyle Show, a kind of downmarket version of The Jerry Springer Show (yes, that is possible: just take a look at it). Granada, the company that used to produce World in Action, now makes The Jeremy Kyle Show, a daytime chat show.

It is the same story with ITV’s news coverage. News at Ten having been moved from 10pm to 10:30pm, then back again to 10pm, is a pale shadow of what it once was, and is very inferior to the BBC news bulletins, not least because it appears to have cut out almost all foreign coverage, possibly because it fired most of its foreign correspondents. And if you try to think of a memorable drama ITV has produced in recent years, you will have to cogitate for a very long time -– and you may still end up drawing a blank.

On the day I write this piece, a Wednesday in July, ITV’s evening schedule consists of three soap operas (Emmerdale, Coronation Street and The Bill), one celebrity cooking show (Marco Great British Feast), News at Ten, followed by a drama series imported from the US (Six Degrees), then, at 11.40pm, a programme described as “a documentary which uncovers the hidden world of high-class prostitutes” (it’s a repeat).