Michael Grade’s tetchy, subdued performance when ITV reported its results this month suggested that he had no groundbreaking, flashy initiative up his sleeve. Instead there was nuts-and-bolts talk of developing the 2008 schedule and finding decent drama for 9pm. Yet, his pursuit of the FA Cup and home England international rights (despite the dismal performances against Israel and Andorra), shows that there might be more excitement to be had after all — that is Mr Grade carrying his narrow lead through injury time and into a result.

The FA auction is Mr Grade’s first big test. The question is whether it is a price worth paying to win back credibility. Brian Barwick, the former ITV man who runs the FA. wants more than £100 million a year for the live Cup and England rights for the next four years. ITV, meanwhile, spends £1 billion a year on programming, and while some of the cost is going to be offset by a partnership with Setanta, ITV is likely to want half to three quarters of the games. After all, in the incumbent BBC/Sky deal, the BBC takes roughly two thirds of the games in the existing £80 million a year deal. So, ITV could end up footing about £60 million to £70 million a year, a level at which some other form of production activity would surely have to give.

For that, ITV would get about four England games a year — and, if the BBC deal is anything to go by, another 19 FA Cup games — at a cost of nearly £3 million a game, or crudely £1.4 million an hour, three times the cost of top-end contemporary drama. On the other hand, Sky — 39.1 per cent owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times — believes that it is worth spending nearly £5 million a game to secure the lion’s share of the Premier League rights.

It will be interesting to see how Sky responds; the hypercompetitive satellite broadcaster is not used to being on the losing side, and while its ally, the BBC, can bang on about the benefits it has brought to the FA Cup, Mr Barwick will need that backed up by cold, hard cash. Sky, for its part, does not see the FA rights as a must have (it shows only one FA Cup game a round), which may augur well for Mr Grade. After all, as ITV’s biggest shareholder, how upset would Sky be if ITV scored a ratings-grabbing coup over the BBC?

The eight years in which the BBC and Sky have shared the rights have helped to rebuild interest in the Cup. Viewing figures on BBC One run between seven million and nine million for key games; a top game on pay-TV, such as Andorra v England on Wednesday night, got 2.4 million (of course, pub viewing changes the picture a bit, but people watch BBC One games in the boozer, too). That size of audience — more valuable because it is young and male — should be attractive to advertisers, too.

So far, that justifies Mr Grade writing a large cheque, raising morale and declaring that ITV is back. Yet it is more finely balanced than that. It is not that long ago that ITV spent £35 million extra to cover the World Cup, and only broke even because advertisers decided they didn’t much want to show up. Then, if you add up ITV plc’s total advertising and sponsorship revenues, the sum last year was £1.54 billion, or £4.2 million a day. That shows that the risk involved as much as £3 million on a single game of football. We don’t know all the detail yet, or indeed who will win, but today, or early next week, it will be clear what risks Mr Grade is prepared to run.

Sir Martin Sorrell is the hyperactive, combative, and brilliant chief executive of WPP, who is happy to tell people that he is “five foot six and a half — the same size as Napoleon”. Bonaparte, of course, built an empire, but after an adventure to Moscow lost it again and ended up on St Helena. WPP, meanwhile, is the world’s second-largest marketing and services group, so investors will hope that the comparisons with the Little Corporal stop there.

The past year or so has seen the BlackBerry wielding boss battling in the courts two former Italian colleagues, whose contracts were terminated after allegations — that they deny — of management irregularities. It is right that WPP tries to use the courts to determine what happened in Italy, but there is a personal edge, too. It is debatable whether Sir Martin really also needed to launch a libel action against Messrs Benatti and Tinelli, which ended with a settlement and not an absolute victory and the possibility that WPP shareholders will pick up part of the £1 million legal bill. Sir Martin and WPP need to consider more restraint in their pursuit of a resolution.

That said, WPP has always been identified with its boss. Sir Martin has the passion of a proprietor, although not the shareholding, and investors know that. With like-for-like sales growing at 5.4 per cent last year, it is not clear that WPP is struggling with complexity, either. And as Sir Martin said about his libel court case, he may have been in court in person, but short courtroom hours left him time to run the business. Those who know him know that he can fit it all in.

Five, formerly Channel Five, is ten this week. According to the regulators, the RTL-owned group is supposed to be a commercial broadcaster, with a skew towards UK production. But has that been achieved? This week’s brainteaser is to name five Five (pay attention now) programmes without referring to the Radio Times or other TV listings. CSI counts only once. The first person who writes in on the “premium rate” e-mail below wins a nonexistent prize. And, no, this time the winner won’t be made up.

dan.sabbagh@thetimes.co.uk

Times Recommends

• Minister in talks with Saudis to protect creditors
• Premier Inn hits back in £29-a-room row
• Bankers hit back at 'populist' bonus supertax