An Uneven Playing Field

In the UK, the top job at the largest commercial broadcaster would have been one of the top jobs in the country just a few years ago. Today it's a poisoned chalice, and as the broadcaster looks for a new CEO to work in the pocket of its dinosaur current CEO and Chairman, bad news arrives.

Some years ago, ITV proposed a formula for delivering advertising which made a virtue from the rarity of TV advertising (and coined the phrase 'a licence to print money'), but this model has come back to haunt it. Indeed, on the day that BT, the UK incumbent telco, was finally devolved of its final competitive responsibility, ITV has been told that it remains encumbered of its 'CRR' ad model.

This is a bad decision, even given the fact that ITV now covers the whole country, rather than being the network of affiliates it was.