This week the Competition Commission (CC) published its
provisional decision following the review of ITV's Contract
Rights Renewal (CRR) undertakings. The CC has provisionally
concluded that the CRR undertakings should remain in place although
some variations may be justified.
In October 2003 Carlton and Granada, the UK's two largest
commercial television companies, merged to create ITV. The CC
allowed the merger to proceed but, in order to protect advertisers,
imposed the CRR remedy given ITV's strength on the television
advertising market. The CRR caps the amount that ITV can
charge advertisers, effectively freezing the terms of the
contracts.
In May 2009, at the initiation of ITV, the CC carried out a
review of the undertakings to determine whether the competitive
environment has changed sufficiently since 2003 to justify the
removal of the undertakings. It was noted that ITV's
market share has declined since 2003, with the penetration of
digital television
