GRADE EXPECTATIONS
WHY MICHAEL GRADE SHOULD BE D.G.

Greg Dyke's gone, and he's not coming back, worse luck. So who should take over the role of D.G. at the Beeb? As far as we're concerned here at TV Cream's media ordinance centre there's only one man in Britain who has the right profile (one-part showman to two-parts ball-breaker), only one man with enough charisma, double-plus "safe pair of hands" credentials, and a keen sense for what smells like a Sunday night show: Michael Grade - the hour approaches!

Surveying the field of candidates for TV Centre sixth floor sequestation, none come close to matching the erstwhile Beeb Director of Television and C4 boss as regards sartorial swagger, self-confidence and bankable good honest charm. Therefore, to launch TVC's campaign to have Grade installed as the new D.G. forthwith we present in a very particular order a rundown of the man's finest hours:

10) KING CONE
It's Channel 4's seventh birthday, and Grade decides to shun the usual raising-a-toast palaver for something far more practical, useful and above all fun. Hence he dresses up as an ice-cream salesman, erects a stall in the C4 entrance lobby, and hands out fresh cornettos to bemused commissioning executives passing by. The results: a bit more easy publicity, a suitably refreshed staff - plus it pisses off Jeremy Isaacs, which is always a good thing.

9) "MOTOR CARS WERE FUNNY THINGS - FRIGHTENING!"
Without Michael Grade there might not have been a plethora of worthy stuff including Edge Of Darkness, The Singing Detective, GBH and A Very British Coup - but there definitely wouldn't have been master mitherer Corporal Jones. Sir Clive Dunn was on Grade's books back when Mike was but a rumpled, green-about-the-gills theatrical agent - and it was Grade that pushed for and ultimately won Clive the plum role in Dad's Army. Stardom and "silently falling about" were but a rocking chair away.

8) MISERAMA
Up till Grade's arrival at the Beeb in 1984, Panorama sulked slap bang in the middle of primetime Monday nights, scaring off viewers for the whole of the evening and behaving as if it had the status of a listed building. It still does the latter two of course, but the former was successfully neutered when Grade kicked the programme the other side of the Nine O'Clock News, which was great, and in the process conveniently annoyed arch-nemesis David Dimbleby, which was even better.

7) HUMBLE PIE IN THE SKY
There are plentiful tales of Grade's run-ins with the ubiquitous British Sky Broadcasting Company - swiping the first few series of Friends and ER from under their noses for starters. Best of all, though, was Mike's derisory dismissal of Murdoch's bombastic attempt to bid for Channel Four News - a finely costed proposal that amounted to the sum of "a single sheet of plain A4 paper."

6) "WE FUCKED DIMBLEBY!"
- aka Grade's response on learning the sandwich-munching flapper had once again failed to become Director General.

5) HE'LL MEET YOU FOR A DRINK IN THE BAR AFTERWARDS
Credit must go to Grade for valiantly trying to give Brucie a debut show with LWT that had to instantly overshadow everything the man had done with the Beeb. But for all the bluster and expense, what Bruce Forsyth's Big Night actually ended up most notable for was a demented write-up in TV Times that to this day is pinned dead centre in the middle of the TVC office noticeboard, and which ends: "You're going to do well, every Saturday night - no dear, it's not Saturday Night Fever. No, I'm not John Travolta. It's Bruce Forsyth's Big Night." Grade went on to see Brucie right with multiple prancing potential in Play Your Cards Right, despite first phoning up Bob Monkhouse and trying to swap the format for Family Fortunes.

4) EARL E BIRD
No fan of breakfast telly, Grade nonetheless realised the need to colonise C4's early mornings before the IBA sold them off. So was born the fantastic Channel Four Daily: Carol Barnes, a pair of legs suggestively opening a roller blind, James Mates in a poky box room - er, "bureaux" - in Tokyo, Countdown Masters, Kim Newman's sarky film reviews, and the titular fowl hosting quizzes for kids to appear on The Crystal Maze. Frustrating, addictive, surreal, it was one of those shows you stumbled on by accident then never missed another edition. Perhaps the daftest and therefore most compelling breakfast TV ever, within three years the C4 Daily was gone - but that's another story.

3) TEN MORE YEARS!
Every good channel controller should make it their business to appear on their own network as often as possible (and not simply beam out of the pages of Radio Times wrapped in a sequinned safety blanket). Grade proved himself a master of this - by starring on the Telly Addicts Christmas Special, thereby establishing both exceptional raconteur and TV trivia credentials in one effortless swoop.

2) THE BLACK ART OF SCHEDULING
The acknowledged all-time genius of the "hammock" and of "smelling" a hit, Grade wrought a killer BBC1 line-up out of the mess it had become by 1984. But while making sure programmes began on the hour and half hour rather than 6.55pm or 8.10pm, and shunting Wogan and EastEnders into their rightful hallowed places, Grade's greatest achievement will forever be moving the repeat of Neighbours from mid-morning to teatime. Supposedly on the behest of his daughter, the switch also signalled the end of the 5.35pm wasteland - no more MasterTeam (boo!) but also no more Fax (wahey!).

1) THE AXEMAN COMETH
Ranking at the top of our chart has to be perhaps the most acclaimed yet controversial act Michael Grade has ever committed. During his time at the Beeb he axed numerous shows - all of which deserved to go, naturally - but there was one that provoked a now legendary outcry. The programme in question? Well, it had run for bloody ages, had gone through various changes in personnel, was aimed at kids but adults perversely appeared to enjoy it too, and lost all its charm by ending up overtly-violent and in supremely bad taste. Suffice to say it was a huge waste of licence payers money, and had to go.

And suffice to say Stu Francis' career thankfully never recovered.

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