The admission came as ITV joint managing director Clive Jones spoke at the Westminster media forum yesterday.
Jones said: "The market share has slipped but that's an inevitable part of digital penetration." He added, however, that ITV's ratings had started the year well, which had helped in negotiations with advertisers during the new year renewal period.
The news did not hit the share prices of Carlton Communications and Granada, which were up 1.61% to 104.5p and 2.37% to 62p respectively. This despite a downgrade today by investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, which has said the broadcasters are overvalued and that their £2.6bn merger could be blocked. The bank reduced Carlton from a "hold" to a "reduce".
ITV, hit hard by the advertising downturn, has had a tough couple of years compounded by the financial impact of its digital terrestrial service ITV Digital which went bust last April.
Since the collapse of ITV Digital, ITV shareholders Carlton and Granada have ploughed money into flagship channel ITV1, announcing a £100m boost to the programming budget.
Jones also used the forum to call for the government to drop its plans to force public service broadcasters to be carried on BSkyB. The terrestrial networks have been lobbying the government because they can be charged as much as £17m a year for carriage on the network.
BSkyB argues that the charges are justified because it has invested £2bn in its satellite network. The satellite broadcaster releases its results this week.
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