Under the contract rights renewal mechanism (CRR), linking agency deals with ITV1's audience performance, the broadcaster stood to lose around £126m in negotiations with the big agency buying points, which began before Christmas.
A few deals remain to be done in the trading season, but feedback from agencies and broadcasters so far suggests that ITV has avoided the beating it took at the hands of Channel 4 last year and may have seen up to £65m diverted back into its successful digital operations.
Chris Locke, Starcom UK's group trading director, said ITV Sales did "fairly well" under the rules of CRR, but still lost £65m.
"2007 is the year of celebrity mediocrity," Locke said. "Everyone knew the money was coming out of ITV1, but nobody had a strong case to get it."
Last year C4 scooped around half of the money coming out of ITV1 under CRR, but was far less aggressive in trading this year because of an overtrading problem due to a poor second-half ratings performance and a flattening audience profile due to the success of shows such as Deal or No Deal.
C4 is still thought to have gained around £25m under CRR, sharing the bulk of the remaining money with Sky Media, which has also had a relatively successful trading round.
A few deals remain to be done in the trading season, but feedback from agencies and broadcasters so far suggests that ITV has avoided the beating it took at the hands of Channel 4 last year and may have seen up to £65m diverted back into its successful digital operations.
Chris Locke, Starcom UK's group trading director, said ITV Sales did "fairly well" under the rules of CRR, but still lost £65m.
"2007 is the year of celebrity mediocrity," Locke said. "Everyone knew the money was coming out of ITV1, but nobody had a strong case to get it."
Last year C4 scooped around half of the money coming out of ITV1 under CRR, but was far less aggressive in trading this year because of an overtrading problem due to a poor second-half ratings performance and a flattening audience profile due to the success of shows such as Deal or No Deal.
C4 is still thought to have gained around £25m under CRR, sharing the bulk of the remaining money with Sky Media, which has also had a relatively successful trading round.
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