ISBA Welcomes Swift Move Towards Consolidation Resolution

The Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) has welcomed the speed at which changes to the structure of ITV are taking place, despite its reservations about consolidation.

Responding to the news today that Granada Media is to acquire the television assets of United News & Media (see Granada Takes Control Of ITV), the society’s director of media and advertising affairs, Bob Wootton said, “Given that Stephen Byers’ decision on 14 July (see ITV Merger Ruling Abolishes 25% Advertising Revenue Limit) made a shakedown inevitable, IBSA welcomes the swift progress being made towards the resolution of ownership issues.”

IBSA say that advertisers questioned the DTI’s decision to allow consolidation of ITV to progress because they felt it paid “insufficient heed to the negative impact [it] will have on the business to consumer economy by increasing costs of TV advertising.” Today’s deal will see the merged company owning the franchises for Granada, LWT, Yorkshire, Tyne Tees, Meridian and Anglia, placing it far ahead of its closest rival, Carlton, in its domination of the UK’s main commercial TV network. It will also own HTV, but is expected to sell this on.

Bob Wootton would like to see HTV sold sooner rather than later: “Advertisers are now calling for clarity on the future shape of ITV and would welcome further expeditious moves by Granada Media to ensure its share of audience remains in line with primary legislation.” he said.

He went on to express his hopes that the new structure would help tackle other issues at ITV: “With a swift resolution, IBSA hopes it can look forward to a renewed focus by ITV on inward investment in content and programming to tackle its problem of declining audience share.” he said. There has been speculation recently that ITV is failing to match its high CPT with sufficiently high quality scheduling (see Can ITV Sustain Revenues With Rising Prices?). England’s poor performance in Euro 2000 is not expected to help ITV in reaching its target audience figures for the year.

ISBA: 020 7499 7502