The plan, which has already been agreed by ITV partner Carlton Communications, will be presented to investors today who will be looking for signs of improvement from the troubled network.
The increase has been proposed by Granada chairman Charles Allen and represents an almost 7% increase on last year's £775m. The boost to programming investment will go some way to closing the gap between ITV and the BBC, which spends almost £1bn a year on the BBC One channel.
In June, it was revealed that that BBC One had taken over from ITV1 in peak-time ratings for the first time. BBC One captured 29.4% of the monthly peak-time audience in May, compared with ITV1's 28.4% audience share.
Allen will be hoping that improved and higher quality programming will allow it to attract more large-scale advertising deals such as the £320m advertising deal ITV signed with Unilever in April.
The programming boost follows the move last month when the two ITV companies said they were to combine a number of their operations to cut costs and boost advertising revenue. The move sparked fresh speculation that the two will yet merge to form a single ITV company.
The joint operations are due to be in place as early as the autumn and were described by Gerry Murphy, the Carlton chief executive, as a virtual enterprise.
Last month, ITV executives brought some much-needed cheer to the investors and analysts when it reported that ad revenues for October were likely to show a rise of about 6%. If the expectations are met, it will be the sixth consecutive rise in advertising revenues for the network, which has been hard hit by the advertising downturn and falling primetime audiences.
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