Alps, who was speaking at the Media Guardian Edinburgh International TV Festival, said big-brand advertisers could not afford to pull out of ITV, so a merger that resulted in price inflation would force them to pull out of Channel 4 and Five with devastating consequences for their businesses.
"A merger would present a very scary picture. It's not so much ITV's 50%-plus market share that's the issue, but the size of its nearest competitor," said Alps. She added that the remedy of floating off both sales houses to non-ITV ownership would still be unacceptable without controls over the sales houses, perhaps by an independent regulator.
"They would still be trading airtime for one merged ITV entity, with the potential for a distortion of the market," she said.
In response, ITV marketing and commercial director Jim Hytner said a merger of ITV "had to happen" and that he hoped it would include a merger of the sales houses.
"It's crazy that the two ITV sales directors can't be in a room together with advertisers to discuss things like sponsorships and integrated marketing, or contribute to scheduling decisions," added Hytner.
However, another panelist, former Five chief executive David Elstein, mocked ITV's claim that an estimated £20m cost-saving from merging the sales houses was vital to the rationale behind an ITV merger.
Elstein, who has been linked to a venture capital-backed management buyout of ITV, said the divestment of the sales houses was "a hugely exaggerated bogeyman".
He said: "It would be easy to cut £20m from the sales houses without any merger by simply reducing the huge over-staffing."
At an earlier session, BBC director-general Greg Dyke slammed ITV's management and predicted that ITV would eventually have to cut costs by moving onto a satellite or cable platform to escape public service obligations, leaving many without access to ITV.
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