On the ball

ITV has scored some major wins recently, grabbing football rights and signing up important personalities.

Anne Mizzi talks to Simon Johnson, ITV's head of legal and business affairs

ITV's controller of legal and business affairs, Simon Johnson, is football mad.

His office in the company's impressive steel and glass London headquarters is littered with sports paraphernalia.

Mounted on the wall behind him, a signed Leeds United football shirt, an autographed black and white photograph of the 1995 Leeds United football team and an NBA basketball net hang happily alongside his 1999-2000 practising certificate.

He even drinks from a Leeds United mug.This is a man who has lived, breathed and slept football for the last few weeks - and not because of Euro 2000.

Mr Johnson was a key member of the ITV team that won the rights to the highlights of Premiership football from the BBC, a year after being instrumental in securing Des Lynam's transfer from the corporation.Now he is entering another battle for ITV's rights - this time with ITV's regulator, the Independent Television Commission (ITC).

Recent 'issues' over timing of the evening news and the launch of ITN's own news service have been entrusted to the company's long-time adviser, London firm Goodman Derrick, whose lawyers will be pitted against the ITC's law firm Simmons & Simmons.Mr Johnson says: 'I would not think of asking anyone else to advise on this.

The whole question of the timing of our news programmes goes to the heart of ITV's news-scheduling strategy and raises fundamental issues about the way ITV is regulated by the ITC.

It's a matter of real strategic importance to our business.' In addition to the sensitive evening news timing issue, Goodman Derrick has been instructed to advise on ITV's submission to the government on the next communications bill, which will have a fundamental effect on broadcasters.Other firms have a chance to impress on specialist advice not covered by Goodman Derrick.

Mr Johnson's former firm, Denton Wilde Sapte, is brought in for specialist competition work, such as the Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) preliminary investigation into ITV and ITV2.Mr Johnson explains: 'The best lawyer will always tell us something that had never occurred to us before, and most important to me is industry knowledge in general, and an understanding of ITV in particular.'This also means that the company doesn't constantly have to fill its lawyers in on the background.

Mr Johnson explains: 'So if we say to Goodman Derrick, "the ITC look as though they are going to force us to move the news away from 11 o'clock where they previously agreed it, how do you advise us?", we don't than have to tell them, "by the way, this is governed by the provisions of the Broadcasting Act".'Most of the legal work on commissioning is done in-house by the nine-strong legal and business affairs department.

One of the main reasons for this is because trade terms are standard.Mr Johnson says: 'We can do every single one of our contracts in-house because they are broadly the same.'ITV does not 'hoard' rights to non-television media, so its terms are generally more favourable to the producer than similar terms on offer from rival terrestrial channels, says Mr Johnson.So when ITV bought the rights to Who wants to be a millionaire? from Celador, it kept all the legal work in-house.

Programmes such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale and The Bill are among its biggest deals, and these come up every few years.

For Who wants to be a millionaire?, the legal department had to work out how the prize fund would operate and what would happen if it ran out of money.

'No one's won a million - the prize fund still has enough in it,' jokes Mr Johnson.ITV also does a number of deals centrally, with 'key talent' such as Robson Green, Carol Vorderman, Ross Kemp and Des Lynam, which are not strictly within the legal department's remit.

But Mr Johnson says: 'We would get involved in that.

We would do that deal from a business point of view, and I was personally very involved in the deal to bring Desmond Lynam across from BBC to ITV.'Despite wars over key talent, Mr Johnson insists the relationship between ITV and the BBC is one of healthy competition and rivalry.

Mr Johnson points out that the BBC has 30 times the number of people in its legal department alone.

'We can work more quickly and more efficiently, so some producers say that they prefer dealing with us,' he says.Another area of intense competition is for movie rights.

But Mr Johnson prefers to talk about football: 'On the European championship, we both have the rights, so we are obviously trying to make sure that the package of programmes we can show is the best.

We both wanted to show the England-Germany game, so that's what we did.

We agreed to divide the other two: we got England-Portugal, they got England-Romania, so it is quite competitive.'BBC, Sky, Channel Four, NTL and OnDigital were also straining for the Premiership deal, which ended up going to sealed bids.

Two days later, ITV signed a deal in partnership with OnDigital for Football League rights and the Worthington Cup.The legal department is now set to update ITV's basic trade terms, which were written in the early 1990s.

Mr Johnson says this is because of IT developments and the convergence of media.

Over the next year, the department will work hand-in-hand with its outside lawyers to agree policy, and then get it approved by its shareholders, the production community, the ITC and the competition authorities.

Mr Johnson estimates that only 25% of the department's work is legal, with 75% of its time devoted to commercial enterprise.

That is why he insists that commercial nous is what really counts, although he admits his legal background has helped with contracts.

Mr Johnson practised at Denton Hall's media department until he was two-years qualified.

There he covered sport, music publishing and television, setting him up for a job at Central TV in 1993, where he remained for 18 months until he joined ITV in 1994.The 33-year-old has bags of energy and enthusiasm, and it is hard to imagine him chained to his desk.

'I love watching sport, I love playing football, my wife would say I love talking about it as well...

I drive people mad because I can't keep still.

I pace around when I'm on the phone, when I'm dictating.

I'm often to be seen charging around the building.'His daughters, aged four years and 18 months, are his 'primary outside interest, other than Leeds United'.

'I'm finding it difficult to get the girls interested in football, I must say.

I will never stop trying.

It's early days yet, they are only young,' he says.The sporting clichs are hard to avoid.

'Team play' and 'team spirit' are favourites, and winning football rights is described as 'a great result'.The job clearly brings two of his favourite things together: 'I love sport, I love television...

I get to go and see a lot of football matches, which is great, but I am also involved in deals that end up with programmes going on television.'It is no surprise that Mr Johnson insists the best way to network is to attend football events.

He grins: 'I would say that, wouldn't I?'

The structure behind the screen

ITV Network LtdITV Network was created by the 1990 Broadcasting Act to commission and schedule ITV's networked programmes.

Its core aim is to put together a 'winning' schedule of network programmes.

It is the representative body for regulation and lobbying on behalf of ITV companies.The budget is spent at the discretion of ITV Network, with the approval of its shareholders, who are the ITV licensees.ITV Network is overseen by the governing body, the ITV Council, and regulated by the ITC.ITV Network's executive commissions and schedules programmes from producers owned by ITV licensees, such as Granada Productions, LWT Productions and Carlton Productions, and independent producers, such as Pearson TV and Celador.ITV Network also buys programmes from overseas producers on behalf of its acquired programmes subsidiary and ITV Network Sport.Legal & Business AffairsThe department manages ITV's annual spend of more than 720 million (this year's budget).Its role is to service the commission and scheduling of the network schedule.The department's other functions include: l Carrying out network negotiations for all programmes;l Contract management - deal conclusion through delivery and payment; l Acquisitions - contracting of acquired programmes; andl ITV multi-channels - ITV2; set to add other channels.Outside law firms Goodman Derrick - lead outside law firm (corporate/commercial, regulatory, employment, property, litigation)Denton Wilde Sapte (competition) ITV Strategy GroupSimon Johnson, head of business and legal affairsBrian Barnard, controller of sportJeff Falmer, head of sport productionDavid Lidderman, director of programmesJohn Hardie, commercial director