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Both businesses are currently operating at a loss and neither has predicted a turnaround in the latter part of the year.

ITV's half-year results in June reported that CSA, which it owns, is expected to make a trading loss in the full year and took a £9m charge against "onerous" contracts.

Pearl & Dean's parent company SMG released interim results last September showing that the sales house made a loss of £300,000, and warned shareholders that it expected a "tough year" ahead.

The ad commitments that the sales houses agreed to pay cinemas were negotiated more than two years ago, when cinema admissions were at least 20 million higher than they are now, and before advertising in general was on the decline.

Aggressive bidding for the contracts between the two rival sales houses are said to have contributed to their recent loss-making.

SMG and ITV are both believed to be keen to dispose of their cinema sales houses.

However, in their current state neither company appears to be attracting buyers with the prospect of ongoing contracts shackling both to their reluctant owners.

After ITV put CSA up for sale, cinema chain Cineworld reminded ITV's investors that it was in a long-term contract with CSA, with minimum guaranteed payments every six months. Cineworld - owner of cinema chain UGC - added that this contract had "significantly more than half its term" to run.

The two sales houses, which between them control the entire cinema advertising market, have both seen the departure of their chief executives since the current terms were negotiated. Carlton's Debbie Chalet left last November, while Pearl & Dean's Christine Costello left the company in early 2006.

Some media agencies remain optimistic about the market, however, with MindShare's head of programming, Simon Willis, predicting a 7% rise in cinema ad revenues this year.