ITN has called for an amendment to the forthcoming Communications Bill that would allow a single company to take over the TV news provider.
At present Carlton, Granada, Reuters, United Business Media and Daily Mail & General Trust each have a maximum 20% share in ITN. The Bill proposes a 40% limit but this would still mean that at least three companies would need to have a stake in the organisation.
The management of ITN are of the opinion that it should be allowed to operate like any commercial company. “You don’t need to regulate the ownership to regulate what goes on the screen,” said the chairman Mark Wood in a briefing yesterday.
However, the Government regards it a special case and believes that output would suffer if ITN was to be owned by any one group.
Carlton and Granada have indicated that they would like to take full control of ITN if and when their £2.6 billion merger is given the go-ahead and Wood was at pains to point out that the BBC and BSkyB are not subject to stringent ownership regulations.
Last year, ITN was forced to cut the annual cost of its contract with ITV by £10 million to £35 million but chief executive Stuart Purvis is predicting total revenues of £90 million in 2003 and the company expects to remain profitable.
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