CRR “Not Good” For Ad Industry

Richard Eyre, chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and former chief executive of ITV, called for current ITV boss Charles Allen to be allowed to unpick the Contract Rights Renewal (CRR) agreement last night, telling the audience at MediaTel Group’s Media Question Time that the process is “not good” for the industry and should be removed before ITV is allowed to “dwindle”.

Eyre’s comments were made following a question on how well ITV is playing “the game,” the response to which from an expert panel was largely positive.

“I think Charles is playing a blinder,” Eyre explained. “In moving towards the single ITV he had to concede the CRR, and it is no surprise that he is now trying to unpick it. I think he should be allowed to unpick it, because having that massive interference in the working of the market is not good.”

He added that the enforcement of CRR could ultimately damage ITV, leaving it unable to compete with the BBC. “Buyers can go round ITV now,” he said. “They don’t need that sort of restriction on the market and I don’t think its good for the future of advertising. I think its extremely useful to still have a player like ITV, big enough to do the big shows and really compete with BBC One, and if you leave the CRR in place for too long then ITV could dwindle, and you have no seriously large commercial player to balance off the BBC.”

Elsewhere Virgin Radio chief executive Fru Hazlitt expressed dismay at the British media industry’s preoccupation with ITV, stating that: “We still need an ITV to compete with the BBC,” while calling for a shift in focus away from ITV, and onto UK media “as a whole.”

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