Tristan Jones, sailor, author, adventurer: born off Tristan da Cunha 8 May 1924; died Phuket Island, Thailand 21 June 1995 Tristan Jones's life was a series of adventures. Grundy Worldwide specialises in what it calls "parochial internationalism" for the small screen. The good old days.Insiders say he is being given a relatively free hand - provided his acumen brings results. But fashioning an international media conglomerate and mixing it with the likes of Rupert Murdoch is a big jump Roland Rat's dad is going to need all his cunning. Yet Dyke seems relaxed, even when complaining that the only real curb on his Plans for World Domination is time "There's never enough of it," the man says "Running, always running to keep up.". When he was an ITV boss, he was virulently anti-Sky, attacking its Premier League football deal, coining catchy slogans such as "movies are free on ITV". The other, more tricky problem, is to steer Pearson into global broadcasting with local partners.

It is shortly launching a satellite service in India.At home, Dyke's dislike of passive stakes has led him to sell Pearson's 15 per cent stake in Yorkshire Tyne-Tees Television briskly, but he does not seem to have decided yet what to do with the 10.9 per cent stake in BSkyB. Its management is dominated by Rupert Murdoch appointees, while current chairman Gerry Robinson, chief executive of Granada, ousted him from LWT "It's quite a good investment But it gives us very little," Dyke says bleakly. It is making one-hour specials for ITV, and directing its writers into new dramas.Not that creative struggle is any substitute for high finance. Dyke is clearly, if quietly, still on the takeover trail: one obvious move is to buy another large TV producer, perhaps in Europe Who? He won't say. Dyke says The Bill, which Thames makes for ITV, is being spun off as a separate production company and encouraged to diversify into other projects. There will be new investment to enhance Thames's role as one of the UK's leading independent programme makers.

The irony, of course, is that in the old days LWT and Thames Television were bitter rivals for the capital's advertising revenue Dyke shrugs."My message is to forget about the past It's gone."The future then. And Grundy will provide an original five-day-a-week new soap in the event of the Pearson-backed Channel 5 broadcasting bid succeeding The move also helps to rebuild morale at Thames. It [Grundy] has a very strong team who happen to know how to make programmes, and how to run a business and make a profit."But there are those who say you overpaid."They know sod all about the value of Grundy."He aims to merge the business "back offices" of Thames and Grundy in London while keeping them as separate company presences in separate markets. They have a certain style of programmes, soaps, game shows, that have been very successful. Under the deal the old man gets the right to keep his name on all productions, during his lifetime."British television is very parochial. We also don't have the Grundy formula for making low-cost, high-rating programmes.

Dyke makes it sound easy: "I've been a fan of Grundy for some time. A perfect catch for someone with something to prove.Just six days before the public offer took place, Dyke took Concorde to New York and struck a deal with Grundy in the arrivals lounge for the lot. "I have always been interested in Pearson," Dyke says."Largely because it seemed to me to be the one British company which could become a significant world player." He grins and points out that, as a highly capitalised, but lightly borrowed company, it can build quickly through acquisition.Dyke had hardly settled behind his new desk before he was announcing its first audacious expansion: pounds 175m for the outright purchase of Grundy Worldwide, the Australian independent producers known here for Neighbours, but which is also one of those rare companies to have cracked the art of adapting successful formats worldwide.Its founder, Reg Grundy, aged 71, now based in Bermuda, had offered - for public sale through Merrill Lynch in New York - the company he'd set up 35 years ago. This endears him to Pearson, which for all its quite genuine blue-blooded reputation and tradition of well-bred executives, has not shied away, in typical City tradition, from employing rough diamonds to get results.The interest is mutual.