ITV faces High Court battle over re-run royalties

by Darren Davidson, Brand Republic 25-Apr-08, 09:15

LONDON - Excelsior Group Productions, the production company behind ITV hits 'A Touch of Frost' and 'The Darling Buds of May', has issued a multimillion-pound claim against ITV in the High Court of Justice.

Excelsior's claim relates to an ongoing dispute the company has had with Yorkshire Television Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc, over royalties it alleges it is owed for the broadcasting of repeats of 'A Touch of Frost', 'The Darling Buds of May' and 'My Uncle Silas' on digital channels ITV2 and ITV3.

Repeats of the award-winning shows, which had previously been screened on prime-time slots on ITV1, were used to launch the broadcaster's new ITV2 and ITV3 channels.

Pip Burley, the chief executive of Excelsior, said: "We are left with no choice but to bring this claim. ITV effectively launched ITV2 and ITV3 on the back of 'A Touch of Frost', a series that at its peak attracted an audience of over 17m viewers.

"ITV chose to pay us derisory rates for running these repeats. They claimed that these other ITV channels were not part of the ITV network and so they fell under a lower royalty clause that we had agreed for the sale of programmes to different television networks and overseas audiences. This is clearly ridiculous."

The full sum is still being calculated, but Excelsior says it received less than £20,000 for more than 100 hours' worth of 'A Touch of Frost', when the series featuring David Jason should have entitled it to £1m.