London Weekend Television

EDM number 1975 in 1992-93, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 10/05/1993.

That this House views the television franchise as a precious opportunity to serve and considers that a television company is a corporate endeavour to produce quality television, to serve the region, upgrade television skills and train, stimulate and sustain televisual excellence, not a machinery for gratifying corporate greed; deplores the crass personal lust for money demonstrated by senior executives at London Weekend Television who, at a time when television companies have been shedding staff, freezing programme and production budgets and resorting to lowest common denominator programming, have covertly shared between themselves the ú55 million jackpot exposed in The Independent on Saturday 8th May, so that Christopher Bland gets ú7 million, Greg Dyke ú5.3 million, Ron Miller ú5.3 million, Brian Tesler ú5.3 million, Melvyn Bragg ú2.2 million, Nick Elliott ú2.2 million, Robin Paxton ú1.6 million, John Kay Cooper ú1.3 million, Barry Cox ú1.2 million and Mike Southgate ú1.2 million; urges all the above to reconsider the sordid example this sets and devote the money to the furtherance of excellence in television rather than their own gratification and considers that they should remember that if television has a mission to explain so do they; and urges the Independent Television Commission, at a time when some companies are struggling financially, to act to stop commercial television becoming a split-level system of self-enrichment for some and bankrupcy for others all with no regard to the interests of the viewer.

This motion has been signed by a total of 62 MPs.