Cynics will question whether Grade has achieved anything concrete yet. They note that he is a consummate PR man and express no surprise that he has charmed some big advertisers and media agencies. They doubt whether the real cultural revolution within ITV that Grade alludes to (see www.mediaweek.tv from today) has really taken place. They suspect that, if the CRR shackles are removed, ITV will quickly revert to its nasty, snarling former self. The truth will lie in what eventually replaces the controversial mechanism aimed at tempering ITV's monopolistic TV trading tendencies.
Grade was optimistic on other fronts. He bigged up ITV's much-maligned Friends Reunited, which he says has more longevity than Facebook and what he sees as the other transient social networking sites, with its clear consumer proposition and ability to charge for services. He believes ITV.com is a "world-class" website that will extend the broadcaster's main TV channels, rather than usurp them.
And he wants to create much more proprietary content for ITV to exploit for resale around the world, rather than commissioning third parties - a task Dawn Airey embarks upon in earnest when she joins the broadcaster next week.
Grade even took encouragement from the BBC's high audience figure (10.5 million) for its recent England versus Russia European Championship football qualifier, on the grounds that ITV has the international broadcast rights for England's home internationals from August next year, as part of its joint deal with Setanta that also takes in the FA Cup. BSkyB and the BBC had held the rights since 2001, and no doubt ITV's largest investor is less than thrilled at the impending switch.
There's no doubt Grade is enjoying his new challenge, which has allowed him to get back into content and "mentor" people such as Simon Shaps in the ITV programming department.
He has just over two years to turn the rhetoric into reality. But if a strong ITV emerges that can have its bombastic tendencies shackled by a reshaped CRR mechanism, that on balance can only be good for the whole media community.
Steve Barrett is editor of Media Week, steve.barrett@haymarket.com.