ITV free of CRR disputes reveals half-year report

by Tristan O'Carroll, mediaweek.co.uk 20-Nov-08, 12:40

LONDON - Agencies and advertisers raised no complaints over ITV's compliance with the contract rights renewal mechanism between April and September.

According to the Office of the Adjudicator, the Ofcom-appointed body that handles disputes between agencies, advertisers, broadcasters and ITV over CRR, it is not unusual for there to be no disputes during the April to September period, which tends to be the quieter six month period for deal negotiations.

It pointed out that there were no disputes during the April-September 2004, April-September 2005 and April-September 2006 periods.

Advertisers and media agencies had brought a total of 13 guidance enquiries since the Office of the Adjudicator’s previous annual report was published in April. This was slightly lower than the 17 enquiries brought during the same period in 2007.

The adjudicator said the provision of information from ITV has been good during this period and added that the formalised timetable the ITV legal team devised to cover the contract agreement process is being followed, and that the countersigning of contracts by advertisers and agencies is occurring to a greater extent.

Previously, the adjudicator had expressed concern that many of the contracts received by the office were not countersigned by advertisers and agencies.