Competition Commission delays CRR decision

The Competition Commission has delayed its final decision on ITV’s Contract Rights Renewal to the end of February.

The commission was expected to publish its final report on CRR by Christmas but has put it back by two months, claiming that it needs to consider the “significant” submissions it has received.

A spokesperson said: “The reason for the delay is that we’ve continued to receive significant submissions, which we’ve having to consider carefully. Unlike other inquiries we do, this one does not have a statutory time limit, so it’s difficult to call time on submissions even if they come quite late in the day.”

The commission has been considering responses since it published its provisional report in September, which suggested that the CRR regime should stay in place but with a few variations.

It had called on the industry to suggest potential variations and respond to the proposal to widen the definition of ITV1 to include ITV1+1, ITV1 HD or any channel that ITV launches.

However, since then the commission has admitted that there may be a case for change but said “exactly how we do it is far from clear cut”.