"My dear Mr Grade, when are you bringing back 3-2-1?"

Once I would’ve had some default reaction along the lines of: don’t even dream of touching such an institution; sure, it might be ailing, a half-breath of the presence it used to be, but don’t say the remedy should be extinction. It still has a part to play, it still stands for something…doesn’t it?

But in a practical, constructive way, mind. Basically, the channel should join its cousins as a purely-digital venture. ITV1 should air from 7pm to 1am every night, on Freeview, satellite, cable and online. It should vanish from the analogue spectrum. This would:

a) be an enormous kick up the arse for the rest of the country to switch to digital
b) save Michael Grade a hell of a lot of money (and a lot of face besides)
c) make sense

Because there’s no logic in ITV existing as a public service broadcaster anymore. It doesn’t broadcast anything of public service. It hates the fact it has to fill the daytime with programmes, so take the daytime away from it. It can’t stand having to broadcast the news, so scrap that too. It can’t give sport the time and format it deserves, so ditch that and relaunch ITV Sport as a digital channel. GMTV could go it alone if it wanted, again as a purely digital service.

The only things that ITV1 can rely on these days to earn it money are Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Simon Cowell. They also seem to be the only things people want to watch on ITV1. Fair enough: stuff the schedules of the new all-digital ITV1 with them, plus The Bill, Heartbeat and a film to finish the evening off. Sorted. There’d even be proper start-ups and closedowns again, to please anyone over the age of 30.

One piece of legislation would do the trick. It could be Gordon Brown’s legacy to the nation. Were Michael Grade to propose such a thing, and then succeed, he’d be slaughtered by the press and politicians for about three weeks, but then hailed as the saviour of ITV for the rest of his days.

Do it Mike!

In truth Grade was in the wrong office at the BBC. He should have been Director-General. That would have given him the licence to deploy those legendary black arts of scheduling, besides handing him the excuse to do shameless photo opportunities with cast members from all the Beeb’s top shows, plus be far more of a charismatic, avuncular and likable public figure than Mark Thompson.

All of these things he’ll now be able to do at ITV, but only because the network got into such a mess in the first place that it had to merge the roles of chief executive and chairman in order to make the job of running the place in any way appealing.

As BBC chairman all we only really saw of Grade were his dry turns at government committee hearings and corporate conferences. Maybe he made a difference internally, aiding morale and boosting the BBC’s self-confidence. Externally, you sense his departure won’t make any difference at all.

Christopher Bland, another former BBC chairman, made an insightful point on the Today programme yesterday morning. Grade, he argued, had more or less done himself out of a proper job anyway by sanctioning the replacement of the governors with the BBC Trust. Grade was to have been chair of this new body, but equipped, by definition, with far less authority to meddle as he had when chair of the governors. Sensing he was about to see out the rest of his days in the most emasculated job he’d had for decades, Bland reasoned, Grade was already looking for a reason to jump when ITV came calling.

It’s fair to say whenever Grade’s done a job where he hasn’t had the power to put some stick about – when he was creative director of the Dome, or chair of Camelot, or looking after his dad’s old service stations – he’s come unstuck.

Now he’s got the whole of ITV to play with. He got a standing ovation when he showed up at the network’s offices, just like he did when he made his first appearance in the BBC as chairman. In both cases it was deserved. If he makes ITV the powerhouse it once was, however, he’ll have pulled off the biggest success of his career.