FORMER Bank of Scotland chief executive Sir Peter Burt was today named as the first chairman of newly merged broadcaster ITV.

The 59-year-old, who oversaw the bank’s £28.5 billion merger with Halifax in 2001, edged out other candidates thought to include Tesco chairman John Gardiner.

ITV, which was created through the £6 billion merger of Carlton Communications and Granada earlier this month, said the appointment would take effect from March 15.

The appointment of Sir Peter followed consultations with shareholders who had earlier forced the resignation of Carlton chairman Michael Green. He had been the previous choice to head the enlarged company.

The nominations committee led by interim chairman Sir Brian Pitman was keen to avoid a similar controversy or having to make the sort of climbdown that led Sainsbury’s to drop Sir Ian Prosser as its chairman-elect.

Sir Brian today declared the appointment of Sir Peter “another significant milestone for ITV”.

He said: “I have no doubt that his leadership will be enormously beneficial to both the merger process and the resurgence of ITV as a major force in UK television.”

Sir Peter is understood to have got the nod over 66-year-old Mr Gardiner because of his relative youth and record at the helm of a leading FTSE 100 company.

Governor

After retiring as a governor of the Bank of Scotland in 2003, he continued to serve as a non-executive director of oil group Shell. He is also chairman of Gleacher Shacklock, the UK arm of a US investment bank.

Sir Peter said: “ITV is an exciting and vibrant business. It is having its best on-screen year on year performance for 10 years and there is a clear strategy in place which is beginning to show results.”

Media analyst Kingsley Wilson, of stockbrokers Investec, said the appointment would be broadly welcomed in the City and was unlikely to spark a similar furore to the one that followed the appointment of Mr Green.

He said: “Sir Peter has a degree of gravitas with the City that will be acceptable and has a good track record.”

The board of ITV, led by chief executive Charles Allen, had hoped to unveil the chairman ahead of the completion of the merger.

But the selection process was unable to be resolved in time for trading in company shares to begin on February 2.

Mr Wilson added: “It’s pretty clear what ITV has to do over the next six months so there was no urgent need to move very quickly to appoint someone. They had to get this right as it would have been more damaging to rush it and appoint the wrong person.”