By Nick Higham BBC media correspondent

If you want to get to the top in television today, you could do worse than start in children's programmes.

Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC One, Dawn Airey, the chief executive of Five (soon to join BSkyB in a senior programming role) and now Nigel Pickard, the new director of programmes at ITV, have all spent significant periods producing or commissioning children's programmes.

Indeed Nigel Pickard has spent virtually his entire career making programmes for kids.

Once, he was at long-gone ITV companies Southern and TVS, where he worked on shows like Worzel Gummidge.

Then he was at Scottish Television, where he was controller of entertainment and drama features - responsible among others for the Saturday morning shows What's Up Doc and Wolf It.

Pickard cut his teeth in childrens' shows

Later, he was controller of children's and youth programmes at the ITV network for two years from 1998 as, where he commissioned Ant and Dec's highly successful Saturday morning show SM:tv.

Two years ago the BBC lured him to run its children's department, where he has been responsible not only for stalwarts of the schedule like Blue Peter and Teletubbies but also for the launch earlier this year of two new channels aimed at children and toddlers, CBBC and CBeebies.

Competitive

It may be tempting for grown ups to write off children's telly as somehow less serious than the adult kind.

Pickard also developed Ant and Dec's career

In reality it's one of the most competitive branches of television, with no fewer than 14 dedicated channels plus programmes on the BBC and ITV.

It's also the widest ranging: children's commissioning editors have to know about drama, entertainment, factual programmes, the lot.

This background helps to explain why ITV turned to Nigel Pickard two weeks ago after Dawn Airey spurned the network's offer of a post as chief executive in favour of Sky.

But for all his experience - and his reputation as a thoroughly nice bloke - Pickard is not the charismatic leader that Airey would have been, and that the network said it was looking for until very recently.

That was then: The days of ITV being a network of companies are numbered

Then again, in the past fortnight the tie-up between Carlton and Granada has gone from "are they, aren't they?" office gossip to fully-fledged engagement, complete with diamond ring and in-depth discussions with the caterers.

Too many chiefs

When Carlton and Granada merge ITV will have too many chief executives as it stands; to have acquired yet another corporate figurehead running the ITV Network would have made life awfully difficult.

The word from ITV is that Pickard will work as part of a triumvirate at the network with the head of marketing, Jim Hytner, and scheduling boss David Bergg.

He will lead an established team of commissioning editors, though one or two might jump ship if they feel aggrieved at being overlooked in favour of Pickard.

Coronation Street needs a lift

His predecessor David Liddiment was a strong and charismatic personality who acted as a television industry spokesman for ITV.

Pickard is a quieter character altogether.

Good timing?

ITV's hope is that the network has acquired a safe pair of hands who will bolster the schedule - and prove strong enough to resist any attempts by Carlton or Granada to get him to favour programmes produced in-house over those produced by independent producers if the outsiders' proposals are better.

His timing may be good. ITV has had a dreadful couple of years in which its audience share has fallen below BBC One's for the first time ever, thanks to programming disappointments and disasters like the scheduling of The Premiership and the failure of Survivor.

On his way: David Liddiment was a charismatic leader

There are signs of returning life, though. Programmes like I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here have been getting big audiences and favourable press coverage.

But there is still cause for alarm. Coronation Street's ratings have slipped badly. Audiences have been deserting ITV's Formula One coverage.

And there is no prospect of a let-up in the competitive pressure from a resurgent BBC, an increasingly successful Five and, above all, from the digital channels which more and more of us can now watch.

Nigel Pickard will need all the skills honed on shows like SM:tv to keep ITV buoyant.