Fragmenting audiences, the launch of digital TV and the gnawing demand for cheap, plentiful shows will conspire to give Pearson Television an advantage.So why aren’t the traditional broadcasters doing the same thing? “I came out of ITV, and certainly I can say that it is not the kind of business that encourages you to take risks,” Mr Dyke says. “We have known about the challenges of digital, of rights, of new competition in broadcasting, and the need to expand overseas and on the Continent. But not one of them has done anything.”The other problem is that the traditional broadcasters are too stuck in their elitist ways In the UK, you are not applauded for the popular programmes. The production process was captured by the intellectual elite.”In the end, the logic of the changes in UK television will mean broadcasters will want to expand more aggressively into programme-making and rights acquisition.”The monopoly is crumbling and broadcasters will have to own their product.”Mr Dyke has thought it all through. “As broadcasting fragments, it becomes harder and harder to hold on to brands The ones with the good names are worth their weight in gold You couldn’t afford to build The Bill from scratch today. Building the name will get harder.”I guess what I am saying is that, logically, broadcasters need to look at owning a company like Pearson Television.”That’s as close as he will come to conceding the company could well be bought one day, and not necessarily by him. Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB has already looked carefully, aware it needs to develop a true presence in British programming if it is to reduce its huge programme acquisition budget.The big challenge in 1997 will be to get Channel 5 right.

Mr Dyke will become chairman of Channel 5 Broadcasting in the New Year, and has been taking a close interest in the preparations for launch.He has had to live down his infamous contention that the controversial door-to-door retuning exercise – necessary to ensure VCRs don’t suffer interference from the signal – was nothing less than a “burglar’s charter” “That was the most expensive comment I ever made,” he says. “Just look at the security features we had to build in as a result of that quote!”He says that he is unbothered by the rocketing costs of retuning, now estimated at pounds 180m compared to just pounds 55m in the Pearson-led Channel 5 bid. Part of that stems from the addition of 4 million new homes in areas that originally could not have received the signal.”The extra retuning costs are not a problem for the shareholders, because the more eyeballs there are, the more money we can make,” Mr Dyke says.Not a bad set of challenges to keep a chief executive busy. A new channel, global acquisitions, the prospect of digital television by the end of 1997. And in the midst of it all, a radical restructuring of Mr Dyke’s parent company, perhaps even the demerger of the television operations.Mr Dyke may be counting eyeballs for the new Channel 5, but his own eyes look focused on the bigger prize: growing Pearson Television, and one day perhaps owing part of it..

Hardy Underwriting Group, a Lloyd’s of London underwriter, will join the Alternative Investment Market today in a pounds 10.65m flotation. While a few of the larger underwriters have stock market quotations, Hardy is unusual because it underwrites just one syndicate which is known as 382.
Peter Hardy, chief executive of Hardy Underwriting Group, said the listing could pave the way for other small underwriters “I’m sure a lot of people are watching us. We were rather surprised we were first,” he said.Mr Hardy added the flotation was designed to encourage new names into the syndicate because they would know they could easily get in and out.The complicated transaction involves Hardy Underwriting Group merging with Hardy Underwriting Agencies, the managing agent of syndicate 382. Hardy Underwriting Group will provide about 25 per cent, or pounds 16m, of the underwriting capacity of syndicate 382 in 1997.”Syndicate 382 has been one of the more consistently profitable syndicates at Lloyd’s and has an underwriting team which has worked together for many years,” Mr Hardy said. He has been the active underwriter for the syndicate since its formation in 1975.The syndicate, a specialist in helicopter insurance as well as other aviation and marine underwriting, managed to maintain positive results in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Lloyd’s average slumped into negative territory.Hardy Underwriting Group set up the first corporate name under the “interavailability rules”.These allow names to convert from unlimited liability underwriting to a limited liability corporate vehicle, while using assets which Lloyd’s holds on names’ behalf.. Christmas for me is not an occasion for discussion or debate It is a time for contemplation and wonder.