Carlton Attacks Granada Over Leaked Letter

Carlton chief executive Gerry Murphy, has accused Granada of “hysterical scaremongering” in its attempt to influence the government over the media ownership rules.

Hitting back following Granada’s letter to the Prime Minister, which said that if the media ownership rules were not reformed Granada may be bought out by a foreign company and ONdigital closed due to its financial difficulties (see Granada Warns Of ITV Disaster), Murphy said: “We disagree fundamentally that a slippage of a few months in the timetable for the Communications Bill is unduly threatening to ITV or its shareholders.” Murphy explained that as a full integration of both Carlton and Granada would place all four big licenses under the same ownership, suggesting that the competition regulators are more likely to determine the outcome of ITV consolidation than the communications bill. He said: “Hysterical scaremongering is really not helpful.”

Attempts by Carlton and Granada to portray a unified ITV suffered further set back as Murphy said that the merger of Carlton and Granada was not a foregone conclusion due to the size of ITV’s share of the TV advertising market- currently 56%.

Confidence in ITV was also knocked by Zenith Media’s predictions that this years ad revenue will be the worst in ITV’s 50-odd year history (see Carlton And Granada Have Unhappy Monday).

Carlton: 020 7663 6363 www.carlton.com Granada: 020 7620 1620 www.granada.co.uk

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