This morning, the commission announced that it would delay its decision on the merger by a further two months, allowing it to consult the TV and advertising industry about additional remedies suggested to allow the merger to go through.
One of the new proposals is believed to have been made by the ITV companies. It would enable advertisers to renew share deals, but based on the same terms as previously agreed. Advertisers would also be allowed to reduce the number of ads if ITV's share of viewers decreased without losing their discounts.
Share deals give advertisers discounts over a period of time if they agree to spend a certain amount of money. Only ITV negotiates its ad deals in this way and last year it ran into trouble with a controversial £320m Unilever ITV advertising deal, the largest to date in UK advertising, which sparked an Independent Television Commission inquiry.
The other new proposal will see a minimum amount of ITV's airtime auctioned off each year to a third party, which would then be sold to a secondary market.
In a statement, the Competition Commission said: "The group of commission members charged with undertaking this inquiry have continued to receive evidence on these and other issues, and have held hearings with the parties to the proposed merger, and with others."
The commission is inviting comments from the industry into the effectiveness of these remedies, ahead of making its decision, due on August 26, on which possible options the ITV companies can adopt to ensure their merger gets clearance.
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