ITV Fights Back Over C4 Funding Formula

ITV has today published a report detailing its position on the Channel 4 funding formula. The row over the funding formula has been as loud as ever lately, with the ITC last week confirming press reports that it would like to see the formula changed after its official review in 1997. (Newsline 07/12). The ITC does not wish to see it abandoned, as is the stance of C4, but merely altered so that in normal circumstances C4 does not have to pay out.

ITV has today produced a paper which highlights “the significance of the formula and the balance and stability it brings to the financing of British television.”

The report points out that the C4 funding mechanism is part of a complex set of arrangements for funding commercial television and should not be considered in isolation; ITV companies have to pay for their licences, C4 does not. The income from the formula is a key source of income for a number of ITV companies, and the abolition of the funding mechanism would increase pressure for the abolition of the cross promotion agreements between the two channels.

ITV: 0171 843 8000