From 'Britain's favourite button' to a tacit acknowledgement that advertisers no longer need ITV1 in their communication plans, the broadcaster has certainly come a long way over the past decade.
ITV is claiming a victory in managing to convince the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) that it is, in its own words, 'substitutable' by other TV channels. Therefore, it argues, the Contract Rights Renewal procedure, which was put in place to protect advertisers from ITV exerting undue pressure on them in negotiations, should be reviewed and, potentially, scrapped as the TV market has become self-regulating.
This admission might seem a heavy price to pay - and one that rival broadcasters would be well-advised to quickly seize upon. However, the removal of CRR would overshadow this given its impact on ITV's revenue streams and share price since its inception in 2003 and how far the broadcaster's share of commercial impacts, against which the formula is fixed, has fallen over that time.
Parting gift
The dismantling of CRR may also prove the coup de grace for executive chairman Michael Grade, who is to stand down in 2010. If he is successful, it could potentially un-shackle the broad-caster from the most burdensome piece of legislation it inherited from his predecessor, Charles Allen.
A complete scrapping of CRR, however, is only one of the options open to the Competition Commission once it has conducted a consultation on the OFT's findings.
Other possibilities include adjusting the way it calculates how much advertisers and agencies are allowed to change their commitments to ITV, a separation of ITV1 sales from its digital sister channels, or a requirement that ITV ensures all its contracts are 'fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory'. Whatever the course taken, few doubt that in 2010, negotiations with ITV will take a very different from those in the era of CRR.
Support for the complete abolition of CRR has even come from some media agencies that have, historically, benefited from its retention.
Phil Georgiadis, chief executive of Walker Media, which negotiates with media owners on a client by client basis, agrees with the 'substitutable' argument, saying that while there was a rationale behind CRR at its inception, a strong ITV is in the interests of advertisers. Moreover, he believes that a free TV advertising market will be good for advertisers as it will serve to expose those agency deals where all client budgets are lumped together for a single negotiation, for what they are - aggregated negotiation for the agency's benefit, rather than the advertisers'.
'Agency deals have distorted the market, and the interests of advertisers are not at the top of the list. We need to get away from planning by channels and trading by share and trading with everyone,' he argues.
'Agency deals prevent agencies taking negotiation positions and prevent the ultimate sanction of walking away from a deal.'
The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has expressed 'disappointment' at the OFT's findings, but declined to provide any further comment until it has had the opportunity to study the 116-page document more fully.
Although ITV concedes that the substitutability argument is an admission that it is no longer a must-have on schedules, it claims that this is only on a competition basis and it is capable of maintaining its premium-price positioning because of the strength of its programming.
In fact, one of its key arguments is that CRR was preventing it from making more innovative programming because its fortunes were inextricably linked to its share of commercial impact. Because of this, the channel says, it played it safe, pumping up its traditionally high-rating programmes such as Emmerdale at the expense of taking risks with fresh drama productions that could have brought new and diverse audiences to the channel, such as Lost in Austen, which premiered last November.
If advertisers get the TV airtime that they want, rather than the airtime that benefits an agency deal, but at the same time retain some protection, and if new audiences and programmes are brought to ITV, thereby safeguarding its commercial future, there can be little doubt that the demise of CRR should be welcomed.