OFT To Conduct Review Of CRR

The Office of Fair Trading has announced that it is to conduct a review of the imposed contract rights renewal (CRR) on ITV.

The review, to be conducted in partnership with Ofcom, is scheduled for early next year.

The OFT said that further information will be published “when the review commences”.

ITV responded to the news in a statement, saying: “ITV welcomes the OFT’s decision to review the Contract Rights Renewal remedy put in place in 2003 prior to the Granada-Carlton merger.

“We will be making the strongest possible representations to the OFT to conclude the processes within a year from now, giving advertisers and commercial broadcasters the certainty needed to contract airtime and plan levels of programme investment for the calendar year 2009.”

ITV referred the CRR to the OFT last October in a bid to get it scrapped (see ITV Refers CRR To OFT).

Michael Grade, ITV executive chairman also called for an urgent review into CRR in March at ITV’s AGM, blaming the mechanism for a dramatic slump in profits and advertising revenues at ITV last year.

Grade said: “There is a lack of innovation in our programming, partly resulting from a fear of ratings failure and the punitive consequences that follow under the Contract Rights Renewal (CRR) remedy.” (see Grade Says ITV Lacks Innovation As Profits Decline).

CRR was introduced in 2003 to protect advertisers from ITV1’s dominance of the TV ad market, following the merger of Carlton and Granada to create ITV plc.

ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com