Speaking at the "How to Save ITV" session at the Edinburgh International TV Festival over the Bank Holiday weekend, Elstein said that ITV's attempt to blame media regulator Ofcom for its recent troubles was a "very old game". His comments came in response to demands made earlier in the session from Rupert Howell, ITV's managing director for brand and commercial, for Ofcom to demonstrate "greater urgency" in its reform of public sector broadcasting.
Elstein said: "ITV's regulatory obstacles are relatively minor. The underlying problem is that ITV has far too narrow a revenue base."
Kelvin MacKenzie, former executive chairman of the Wireless Group, said all media companies were facing the same challenges of trying to diversify their revenues in the face of fragmenting ad revenues.
He claimed ITV should be owned by a large global media company.
Elstein said any sale of ITV could not take place until Sky's 17.9% stake in the company was sold. In January, John Hutton, the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, ruled that Sky's stake is anti-competitive and should be divested.
ITV's Howell had earlier called on Ofcom to speed up reform. "ITV's PSB obligations need to be tailored for a fall in value in licences from next year," he said.
Howell said he "completely disagreed" with Elstein's view that the free-to-air TV advertising model was in decline. "It issuffering cyclical problems, not structural," he said.
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