06-05-2022, 09:24 AM
There was definitely still an element of wanting a prestige location when Waterhouse Square was chosen, particularly given the plan at the time was to move back to South Bank within a few years. Then the chief exec changed and very quickly that plan was abandoned, and Carolyn McCall is notably less attached to premium locations than her predecessor (being in charge of Easyjet probably helped with that view!). Covid has only accelerated that so has made the move to a location outside of central London now much more palatable given a huge proportion of the staff won't be going in there 5 days a week (and anecdotally, many are still barely going in at all at the moment), so it makes sense.
Arguably the biggest change (next year) is for those at Grays Inn Road, which was home to the ITV Network Centre from the early 90s and has variously occupied a few floors of the building, to most of it, back down to I think three floors at the moment. The old ITV NC commissioning/strategy part of the business moved to the tower around 2009 to be closer to production, but GIR has been home to sales, technology and online pretty much all the way through (and since the tower closed a few other areas including marketing and sport).
Arguably the biggest change (next year) is for those at Grays Inn Road, which was home to the ITV Network Centre from the early 90s and has variously occupied a few floors of the building, to most of it, back down to I think three floors at the moment. The old ITV NC commissioning/strategy part of the business moved to the tower around 2009 to be closer to production, but GIR has been home to sales, technology and online pretty much all the way through (and since the tower closed a few other areas including marketing and sport).