ITV Chiefs Dismiss Ad Sales Proposal
ITV’s joint managing directors have attacked the idea of splitting off their ad sales departments in response to wide-ranging proposals put forward by the former head of Channel Five, David Elstein.
Writing in today’s Financial Times, Mick Desmond and Clive Jones, claim that contracting out advertising sales to two separate houses would involve “undoing much of the good work of the last year”.
There have been a number of wide-ranging proposals for a post-merger ITV from a host of senior broadcast executives, headed up by Elstein. It is believed that a divestment of Carlton and Granada’s airtime sales, which many believe would save the planned merger, lies at the heart of Elstein’s proposals for the group.
However, Jones and Desmond believe his schemes are unworkable, commenting: “He [Elstein] says he would like to save £20 million by moving to a lightly staffed national sales model, like Channel Five. But ITV’s regional sales structure generate 10% of its total revenues, equivalent to half of Five’s total income.”
The war of words is likely to continue at the Media Guardian International Television Festival, which begins later today. Jones and Desmond kicked off the debate with their closing remarks in today’s FT. “Corporate stalker, conference performance performer, policy guru: Mr Elstein is a man with a lot of spare time. From ITV’s point of view, long may that continue,” they commented.
A decision on the proposed ITV merger is expected from the Department of Trade and Industry in the next twenty days. Its prospects were recently thrown into turmoil by reports that regulators have rejected the groups’ key proposals to save the deal (see ITV Merger In Jeopardy As Remedies Are Rejected).
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