ITV companies, Carlton and Granada, are to be allowed to run extra advertising minutes in order to make up for losses caused by augmented news coverage of the war in Iraq.
As part of this coverage, ITV1’s nightly news bulletin has been moved from 10pm to 9pm during the conflict and has attracted record audiences as a result. However, reports suggest that ITV has suffered from not showing advertisements during the programme.
The Independent On Sunday claims that this is due to lack of advertiser interest and is not the result of an editorial decision. Steve Anderson, ITV’s controller of news and current affairs, is quoted in the paper as saying that advertisers do not want to be associated with ‘death and destruction’.
High-profile brands such as Proctor & Gamble are understood to have pulled their campaigns to avoid having products promoted during reports from Iraq. This has prompted fears that Granada could lose up to 5% of its peak time revenue.
However, the Independent Television Commission (ITC) is to allow the broadcasters to run extra ads to make up for this shortfall, according to the paper’s report. The Commission would not comment on the claim this morning.
Carlton’s chairman, Michael Green, recently warned that the coming months will be challenging, due to uncertainty surrounding how advertisers will react to the war (see Carlton Sees Challenging H1 For ITV Ad Revenues). However, the decision to allow ITV to screen extra ads should provide a boost to revenues, which are expected to be down by 6% to 7% in March (see ITV Advertising Forecasts From Merrill Lynch).
Channel 4, which has also significantly increased its news output, has reported no impact on advertising as a result of the war.
The situation appears to be worse in the US, where three-quarters of advertisers withdrew up to $1bn of spend in the first few days of the conflict.
