ITV Power Brokers Team Up To Stop The Rot

Carlton and Granada, the UK’s two major commercial television broadcasters, are to forge stronger links in a bid to win back advertisers and viewers and cut costs at a time of financial uncertainty.

Competition rules do not currently allow for a full merger of the two companies but Gerry Murphy, the chief executive of Carlton implied that they would aim to collaborate further on marketing and programming and amalgamate their back-office operations.

“What we are trying to do is manage it as a virtual enterprise,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “To the extent we can, we will put the marketing people together with the programme schedulers.”

ITV companies have seen revenues and audience share shrink as a result of increased competition from the cable and satellite sector and the revival in fortunes at the BBC. In addition, Carlton and Granada experienced heavy losses and bad publicity from the collapse of their joint pay-TV venture, ITV Digital.

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