Presented by Home and renamed Push, this year's event also includes seven productions and five themed workshops (some led by the tyro companies), but no programmes (companies are expected to produce their own; not all seemed to know this).
As early as 1958, ITA chairman Lord Clark Alann's Dad) wrote with more than a hint of regret: "We did not quite foresee how much Granada would develop a character which distinguishes it most markedly from the other programmes companies and from the BBC".
Using analytics programmes, companies can use the reams of statistics they gather to predict when and where returns will come.
"By having bug bounty programmes, companies make sure the best hackers look at their code," says computer scientist Gianluca Stringhini, assistant professor at University College London.
IN "UNDERCOVER BOSS", a British television programme, company chiefs disguise themselves and work on the shop floor of their own companies.
He was summoned to lunch by Captain Tom Brownrigg, the formidable ex-naval officer who ran the London programme company Associated-Rediffusion and was also chairman of ITN.
They took their scheme to Hawkesworth, who, by now, had set up an independent programme company with John Whitney, and, after a long process of development, LWT bought the project.
Thanks to a new Federal Reserve programme, companies are now able to borrow at longer maturities in the commercial-paper market.
TV watchdog Ofcom estimates that a watershed restriction on fast foods and alcohol will cost the programme companies £211m in lost revenue.
Claude Whatham, who has died aged 80, was an arch-example of the bold, tackle-anything television directors and producers discovered by the infant programme companies when commercial television was being hustled on to the air in 1955-56.
