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BDO Stoy Hayward has said that ITV needs "new blood and new ideas" to help it prosper in the challenging conditions of the UK TV industry.
The commercial public service broadcaster today published its financial results for the first half of 2009, which revealed that it incurred a £105 million pre-tax loss for the period, with total revenues falling by 12% to £909m.
As part of efforts to cut its costs by £155m by the end of the year, ITV has confirmed the sale of its social networking website Friends Reunited to Brightsolid for a total cash consideration of £25m, representing a substantial loss on the sum it paid for the site in 2005.
However, BDO Stoy Hayward's head of media Andy Viner said that these "respectable" announcements demonstrate that ITV's "cost-cutting programme is under control".
Viner also said that ITV has "shown improvements" in both its operational performance and ability to generate cash, but this is not enough to fill in the cracks.
"The bottom line is that the company still lost £105m - and took a substantial loss on the sale of Friends Reunited - so it is clear that ITV is facing a number of significant challenges.
"It still has a high level of net debt (£738m) which has remained broadly unchanged and its pension deficit has increased from £178m to £538m. Both of these will continue to put pressure on ITV's cash position so it is unsurprising it has suspended its interim dividend."
For Viner, it is ITV's "fairly traditional business model" which remains a problem as it is "heavily reliant" on UK advertising revenues. This means that the broadcaster may struggle to cope with the growth of digital technology and the changing way in which consumers access media.
"ITV's results are short on how it will explore this changing landscape and [it] will need to conclude further non core asset sales such as SDN to generate cash for reinvestment while needing to repay €232m (£198.2m) of bonds in October 2011 as it seeks to rebuild its balance sheet," he said.
"ITV desperately needs new blood and new ideas to evolve from a traditional broadcaster and exploit growth opportunities from different platforms using new media. There are some interesting areas to explore - from pay-per-view to charging for additional online content."
Alongside its results, ITV also revealed that discussions to appoint a new chief executive to replace Michael Grade are proceeding in "accordance with the timetable" laid out in April 2009.
Viner added: "The new CEO will need to have plenty of talent - the challenge will be to embrace a changing landscape and develop a new strategy in order to lead the company away from the old world of broadcasting into a digital-led era."
Meanwhile, UBS recently said that ITV should consider shifting to a pay TV model to increase revenues and safeguard its future sustainability.
