OPINION: It didn't take long for Hollinger row to break medialand peace

After the traumas of the past few months, we are heading for a period of tranquillity just in time for the Christmas party season - aren't we?

There are a few details yet to be agreed. The headhunters are still trying to find a non-executive chairman for ITV plc and John Billett and chums are searching for an adjudicator to handle advertising disputes.

But from ITV to BSkyB, surely peace is about to break out at last, and Lord St John of Fawsley has managed to survive as a non-executive director of the satellite broadcaster.

He can be expected to stay for at least six months now the point has been made - somewhat shakily - that old Norman St John-Stevas ran a completely above-board selection process.

For ITV plc, all the hurdles have fallen away. Trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt has rubber-stamped the undertakings and ITV could be one by January.

There won't even be the extra complication of a united sales house to face them. There seems to be no desire for BSkyB, Channel 4 and Five to get together. Five was standing by in the hope of acting as kingmaker, but no one wanted to dance. If Channel 4 had joined with Five, BSkyB would have had to sit up and take notice - and vice versa.

The silence is deafening. As a result, stability reigns and ITV plc will have a chance to prove itself for a month or two. Soon after, the Michael Green revenge factor will come in to play. Only an idiot would bet against Green being chairman of ITV before 2004 is out. He would be an obvious front man for an American predator, with the best bet on this front remaining Haim Saban, helped by Power Rangers money.

The BSkyB succession looks all over bar the shouting. One of the sore points with the institutional shareholders was the possibility of large payoffs for departed chief executive Tony Ball. As he left of his own free will, no more special payments would be justified.

Ball's £10m non-compete agreement for two years goes far beyond special, into the realms of the extraordinary. Apart from making sure that Ball can't become chairman of ITV, at least News Corporation will get some serious consultancy work for its money. Predecessor Sam Chisholm got the millions without even lifting the phone. The institutions will be looking very carefully to see who pays for what in such a deal and who benefits.

The chances are they will be able to do nothing except register a few abstentions at next year's annual meeting.

But with the media, just as one row begins to subside, you can be sure another will emerge with perfect timing. Ironically, this row involves non-compete agreements on an even grander scale. We all knew Conrad Black's Hollinger International was up to its neck in debt and the weekend regulatory findings that "there were inaccuracies in prior public filings involving the amount, authorisation and purpose" of payments to directors was a devastating verdict.

By Christmas, Lord Black could be gone, and every venture capitalist and media owner in the land is running its eye over the Telegraph - with a long list headed by a salivating Richard Desmond.

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