Watchdogs to review ITV advertising regime

The CRR was imposed on ITV to protect advertisers from the company’s potential dominance following 2003’s merger of Carlton and Granada.

ITV’s executive chairman Michael Grade has said the arrangements are unsuited to the digital television age and have hindered the recovery of the broadcaster.

Mr Grade has also argued that CRR leads to a risk-averse attitude amongst programmers in the push to maintain ratings and revenues.

Ofcom and the OFT will begin gathering evidence in the next few weeks and their review is expected to take around a year.

ITV declined to comment today, but said it would submit a summary statement of its position to the regulators in the next two days.

The broadcaster’s biggest advertisers include consumer giants Procter & Gamble, Harpic and Vanish household goods firm Reckitt Benckiser, and Kimberly-Clark, which makes products such as Kleenex tissues and Huggies nappies.

At the time of the Carlton-Granada merger, the Competition Commission recommended that the CRR remain in place for at least three years.

But the regulators may now decide that change is unnecessary, or recommend that the arrangements are varied.

The OFT said: “The OFT will consider what has changed since the time of the CC’s 2003 report and whether the CRR undertakings remain necessary, either in their current form or with modifications, in order to address the adverse effects on the public interest that the CC identified.”

The review is the second piece of good news for ITV this week after UK Business Secretary John Hutton yesterday ordered rival BSkyB to sell down its controversial 17.9% stake in the broadcaster to below 7.5% in order to address competition concerns.