The UK media landscape is transforming, and the unthinkable is happening: national newspaper rivals are about to start sharing offices, ITV is expected to sell once treasured parts of its business and hundreds of jobs are being cut.
But is the situation dire enough to provoke the biggest shake-up in British broadcasting history?
Last week, it emerged that ITV has held discussions with the government about merging with Channel 4 and Five. The talks follow communications minister Lord Carter's Digital Britain report, in which ITV was asked to offer radical solutions to the challenges facing commercial TV by 12 March.
ITV was the first to admit this idea was a dramatic departure - referring to it as 'blue-sky thinking' and 'radical' - but said a merger was one way of combating the advertising downturn and providing sustainable, guaranteed public-service competition to the BBC.
Michael Grade, ITV's executive chairman, knows that the chances of this extreme tie-up being allowed by regulators are minimal. He also knows the advertising industry would object to the decrease in competition that would arise from such a deal. There is also a strong chance that Grade himself does not favour it.
Grade's main motivation for putting forward such a radical proposal is, surely, a cry for help. He does not believe the government and regulators have understood the sheer scale of the crisis facing ITV and hopes that his willingness to present such a radical idea will wake them up to its situation.
Not only are advertising revenues set to tumble more than 20% in the first quarter of this year, and an estimated 15% for the full year, but Grade has been angered by a series of regulatory decisions, including the Competition Commission's blocking of Kangaroo, its proposed online TV venture with Channel 4 and the BBC.
In addition, ITV's contract rights renewal (CRR) mechanism, which regulates the sums it can charge advertisers, is being relaxed, rather than abolished as it had hoped. Some advertisers have said that CRR, introduced to protect them from ITV's market dominance after the Carlton/Granada merger, must not be axed, despite the decline in ITV's ad revenues.
A further challenge is the uncertainty over whether BSkyB will be able to hold on to its 17.9% stake in ITV.
The competition authorities have recommended it reduce its stake to 7.5%; it has now taken its case to the Court of Appeal.
Furthermore, ITV has kept its counsel regarding the likelihood of an expanded Channel 4. RTL, which owns Five and is one of the most likely bidders for ITV, is focusing on a potential merger with C4, while an expanded version of the latter would present increased competition for ITV.
At ITV's full-year results today (Wednesday), Grade is expected to announce major changes aimed at combating the downturn. The group's shares last week teetered just above 20p, a record low, and there is no sign of a dramatic recovery in the foreseeable future.
Despite the fact that an ITV, Five and C4 merger would be unlikely to win approval, this headline-grabbing idea has helped him get ITV noticed.
The future of C4 has been at the forefront of the government and regulator Ofcom's agendas in recent months. Perhaps now they will turn their attention to ITV, realising that, despite it not being government-owned like C4, the public interest value of favourites such as Coronation Street is equally great.
Amanda Andrews is media editor at The Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph and telegraph.co.uk
30 seconds on ITV's wins and losses
- In the week to 15 February, ITV1 (including GMTV) achieved an average daily reach of 24.8m or 43.8% of the audience, against BBC One's 28.7m (50.7%), according to BARB.
- The same week, Coronation Street accounted for five of ITV1's top 10 programmes by ratings, the Monday episode pulling in 10.7m viewers. The top 10 also included two Dancing on Ice shows, Whitechapel, Wild at Heart and Harry Hill's TV Burp.
- BBC One's top show that week, Monday's EastEnders, attracted 10.1m viewers.
- Last Thursday's Billy Connolly: Journey to the Edge of the World (ITV1) won the 9pm slot with an audience of 4.3m and an 18% share, only just beating BBC One's Crimewatch, which achieved 4.1m and a 17% share in the same slot.
- ITV axed Robson Green vehicle Wire in the Blood last month as part of its cost-cutting drive. The Bill is being cut from two episodes a week to one, while production of Heartbeat has been put on hold for an unspecified time.