Michael Grade will today resign as Chairman of the BBC to become executive chairman of its principal rival, ITV.

The unprecedented job swap is a big coup for the stricken commercial broadcaster, but leaves the BBC without a figurehead as it is negotiating a new licence fee settlement.

Mr Grade, 63, will take over the day-to-day running of ITV, and he is likely to be rewarded handsomely for defecting.

As the BBC’s chairman he earned £140,000 for a four-day week.

His appointment will be greeted with relief in the City, which had feared that the company behind Coronation Street was unable to find a leader who could combine business and creative flair.

ITV insiders said last night that they were delighted to have secured Mr Grade’s services. His appointment is expected to be confirmed this morning in an announcement to be made to the commercial broadcaster’s shareholders.

His move comes at a time when the commercial broadcaster is trying to fight off a takeover bid from NTL, the cable company, and make sense of a share swoop by BSkyB, 39.1 per cent of which is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, and which last week seized a 17.9 per cent stake in ITV at a cost of £940 million.

It implies that ITV will try to steer an independent future, at a critical time in its history, and helps to explain why the commercial broadcaster felt able to rebuff a £4.7 billion bid from NTL, supported by its principal backer, the Virgin Group chief executive Sir Richard Branson.

ITV1’s share of viewers has halved over the last decade, to about 20 per cent, and Mr Grade will have to win back middle-class viewers while dealing with the popularity of multi-channel television and the internet.

However, the move will stun the BBC. Mr Grade had fought hard to become its chairman after the resignation of Gavyn Davies two years ago — and the corporation is meeting with resistance from the Government over its attempts to secure an above-inflation increase in the licence fee.

Negotiations to secure a new licence fee are at a delicate stage — with the BBC’s demand for an increase the rate of inflation, plus 1.8 per cent a year, meeting fierce resistance from the Treasury. Mr Grade was heading up the BBC’s bid, and the corporation may feel the loss of his smooth political skills at a time when Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, ruffled political feathers with a threat to abandon a cherished move to Manchester.

ITV had officially been looking for a chief executive to replace Charles Allen, who departed in the summer after intense shareholder pressure.

Many had criticised the length of the recruitment process, but it is now clear that the broadcaster had been targeting Britain’s most experienced television executive in a negotiation that will have stretched over several weeks.

Sir Peter Burt, the former chief executive of the Bank of Scotland, will stand aside as ITV’s chairman.

Nobody had considered Mr Grade as a contender for the ITV top job, because he was thought to be secure at the BBC. However, ITV insiders had been promising a surprise appointment for several days, ending a race that had been widely expected to end with the appointment of Stephen Carter, the former chief executive of Ofcom.

As of tomorrow, Mr Grade will have held top jobs at Britain’s three most popular broadcasters. A former chief executive of Channel 4 in the 1990s, he then became the first BBC chairman with broadcasting experience in 2004, before the move to ITV.

The appointment of a new BBC chairman, which will be undertaken by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, in negotiation with 10 Downing Street, is likely to take several months.

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