Yesterday, Carlton chief executive Gerry Murphy revealed in an interview in the Financial Times that the two ITV companies were to merge some of their back office operations, as well as combining marketing efforts, to improve targeting of advertisers and reduce costs.
ISBA has long been opposed to a merger of the ITV companies, fearing it will force advertising rates to increase. It says of the latest move: "The pooling of operations could lead to information sharing between Carlton and Granada on their advertiser-customers.
"Such practices could, conceivably, represent a form of collusion which would hold negative consequences for competition in the airtime sales market and give Carlton and Granada's sales houses opportunities to manipulate advertising rates."
In the same interview, Murphy admitted that regulatory hurdles had "dampened the prospect of re-opening merger talks for up to three years".
While ISBA says that it welcomes ITV's recognition that there are hurdles to its merger, it claims that by giving the interview to the Financial Times, Carlton and Granada were aiming the announcement at City analysts rather than appealing to advertisers.
Shares in Carlton were up by 0.89% this morning, trading at 142p, while Granada was also up by 0.89%, valued at 84.75p.
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