The announcement by Ofcom this week will give the green light to Sky, Five, Viacom and Flextech to explore joint sales opportunities. Channel 4 said it welcomed the lifting of regulations, but "has no plans at present to change the basis on which we sell our airtime".
Joint selling of TV airtime will in future become a matter for the competition authorities. However, having recently allowed a merger of ITV's sales houses, giving ITV a 52% share of the TV advertising market, it will be difficult for the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to disallow any merger that creates a lesser share than that of the merged ITV.
Recognising this, Ofcom has issued guidance to the OFT ahead of future mergers. According to Ofcom, the OFT should no longer take the view that combined shares of up to 25% will not have an appreciable effect on competition.
Instead, the OFT should recognise that some combined market shares of less than 25% could unfairly affect the marketplace.
Following its review of the TV airtime sales market, Ofcom has decided to maintain two other rules that protect advertisers. The conditional selling of airtime, where, for example ITV might insist on an ITV1 advertiser also buying time on ITV2, will continue to be prohibited. However, Ofcom said it would keep this rule under review.
Any attempts by terrestrial TV companies to withhold airtime from the market, causing artificial increases in demand, will also be prohibited.
Digital channels are exempt from this rule, but Ofcom will keep this under review.
A spokesman for the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) described Ofcom's decisions as a "mixed bag", adding that he was disappointed with the joint selling ruling, which ISBA has strenuously campaigned against.
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