Contract rights renewal to be reviewed

The Office of Fair Trading has confirmed that it will be reviewing the contract rights renewal mechanism imposed on ITV at the time of Carlton and Granada's merger.

The system put in place an automatic system whereby the amount of money advertisers have to commit to ITV on a rolling annual basis is reduced as the network's audience share falls. With ITV1's audience share on a downward trend, ITV claimed in August that CRR cost it £300m in advertising revenue.

This morning, ITV welcomed the OFT's announcement. In a statement, the broadcaster said:

"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."

The OFT expects to begin the review in January.