Speaking to the Lords Communications Committee, Syfret said: "CRR has had some limiting factors on programming and the general strategy of companies and is possibly not in the public interest.
"I don’t think that the removal would make a huge difference to the market. If [other parties] need protection, the government should consider practical issues, but I would be in favour of scrapping the mechanism itself if possible."
The committee called for written evidence for its inquiry into the regulation of television advertising in July, and is expected to produce recommendations in a written report, likely to be released at the end of the year or the beginning of 2011.
However, in its written submission to the committee, advertisers’ trade body ISBA said it was an "appropriate, proportionate and absolutely necessary intervention to protect the advertisers from predatory pricing on the part of the clearly-dominant ITV".
Earlier this year, ITV chief executive Adam Crozier said he wanted to reduce the proportion of ITV’s revenue to come from airtime advertising to 50%, to reduce the broadcaster's dependence on the volatile TV ad market.
ITV told the committee that CRR was "anachronistic and unnecessary in the fast-moving and highly competitive new multimedia environment of the internet, mobile devices and new media players like Google and Apple, which is putting pressure on traditional platforms such as television"
In its submission, Channel 4 said that although advertisers were shifting expenditure online, "it is important not to overestimate the substitutability between advertising on television and on the internet.
"Internet display advertising remains a small proportion of the total display advertising sector relative to television, and is not currently growing at the significant expense of television."
The 10-strong committee is chaired by the Earl of Onslow and a number of members have media experience. Baroness Deech was a governor of the BBC from 2002 to 2006, and Lord Gordon of Strathblane was managing director of Radio Clyde.
In May, the Competition Commission ruled that CRR was still needed to prevent the broadcaster from exploiting its position, but it renewed its call for an overall review of the system for selling TV advertising in the UK.
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