London Weekend Television
No reply had been received to the letter addressed early last week by the SPECTATOR to head-in-the-air Mr Aidan Crawley pro- testing at the transfer by GEC of their share- holding in London Weekend Television to new outside shareholder, Mr Rupert Mur- doch and the News of the World Group, in disregard of LWTV'S Articles of Association. The SPECTATOR asked if the transfer might be set aside and the shares offered to exist-• ing shareholders.
A telephone call to Mr Aidan Crawley's executive suite received the pert answer from one of his young ladies: 'Oh that's something for the Company Secretary who will be replying'.
A letter to the Independent Television Authority was immediately acknowledged to the effect that Lord Aylestone would deal with the matter but that he was away—on a few days holiday.
Mr Crawley's idea of shareholder relations Is to provide the least possible information required under the law. No get together for the shareholders on the set of Please Sir, no cocktails with Paradine Productions supremo David Frost but just the wintry tale of Mr Crawley's 1970 stewardship with the balance sheet for 1970. In it no warning of the startling news of the proposed fix-up of a capital-watering rights issue •for Mr Mur- doch. Particularly surprising since nearly 80 per cent of London Weekend's Television loan stock is still uncalled from corporate shareholders and there has been no indication by the company whether or not the new equity proposed as a rights issue (most of which will revert to Mr Murdoch) will be issued pari passu with the previous 'A' ordinary shares issued to corporative share- holders who undertook to subscribe for loan stock equal to three times the amount of their ordinary shareholding. Let us hope the new shares are not like those special 'A' ordinary shares issued to Mr Frost, Mr Crawley and other artists which carried no obligation to support the company by way of Loan Capital and which in consequence must be worth more than those shares issued to the trodden down corporate shareholders like the SPECTATOR.
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