Speaking to the culture, media and sport select committee as the future of cross-media ownership rules are being debated, he said he believed ITV's current problems relate more to decisions about the company's ITV Digital platform and its premium sports channel ITV Sport than the structure of ITV.
Gardam went on to tell the committee that ITV was a very profitable system, the fundamental economics of which remain robust.
"Last year, Carlton and Granada made profits of some £300m from their ITV licences and that is after substantial payments to the treasury," he said.
Gardam said that the difficulties the broadcaster was experiencing were "self-inflicted" and they should not be the "cause of a distortion of competition in the advertising sales market".
He told the committee that Channel 4 remains "sceptical" that a consolidation of ITV would lead the company to becoming more effective and a competitive player on the international media stage.
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