Last month the OFT, after a year-long probe into CRR, said it favours a relaxation of CRR a move ITV believes would reduce its fixation on commercial impacts and free it up to improve programming. The OFT will make its final recomendations to the Competiton Commission later this year.
IPA Media Futures Group chairman Jim Marshall said: "We have been collating detailed evidence to submit to the OFT to pass on to the Competition Commission. We need the OFT to look at ITV¹s full share of the market [45%] and not just at ITV1.
³The IPA wants to keep the review just on CRR, but the default option will be a full TV market review. The larger issue is that the system of ad- funded TV is broken.² However, there is a concern that such a broad review would take a long time to complete and any relaxation of CRR may even come into action before a full market review took place.
Outlining the IPA¹s opposition to a relaxation of CRR, Marshall said: "Firstly, we have an issue with ITV¹s negotiating leverage. The OFT¹s legal remit may only cover ITV1, but the problem is ITV uses its family channels as leverage [when cutting ad sales deals]. This is 45% of the marketplace which allows it to act dominantly.
"Secondly, we take issue with the argument of substitutability. It is very difficult to substitute ITV1 as many advertisers require swift coverage campaigns and need high impact spots which are not possible to get elsewhere.
"Plus some advertisers have a ceiling put on how much they can spend with each media owner, so in trying to substitute ITV1, they could run out of airtime."
The IPA Media Futures Group will submit its response on behalf of the industry this week.
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