In October 2003, STV made public its interest in acquiring Carlton and Granada's stakes in GMTV. Andrew Flanagan, chief executive, was quoted as saying: 'We would be interested in buying GMTV. You need a trigger to try to do something and that's what we have tried to engineer.' STV believed having a controlling stake in GMTV would allow an effective command against the newly formed ITV sales department. In September 2004, ITV plc purchased STV Group's 25% in the company for £31 million after being given the go ahead from the Office of Fair Trading - despite advertisers' fears it could give ITV influence over pricing. SMG said: ' are pulling out of GMTV because it did not want to hold a minority interest in someone else's media business.'