ITV bosses play down potential costs of CRR.

Graham Duff, the managing director of ITV Sales, has played down the threat that the Contract Rights Renewal procedure poses to ITV's revenues.

Campaign reported last month that CRR, which allows agencies to proportionately change their commitment of clients' ad budgets according to ITV's audience performance, could cost ITV up to pounds 100 million in lost advertising revenue.

But, in a presentation to analysts last week by senior ITV executives, Duff stressed that with more than 20 per cent of ad revenue traded outside of the CRR arrangement, he did not expect the loss of revenue to be pounds 100 million. He would not say what he expected the final figure to be.

Duff added that CRR was a 'fall-back' position for agencies and that the growth in ITV2's audience would counter the decline felt from the main ITV1 channel. ITV has set itself a target of pounds 150 million in revenue from its multichannel operations ITV2 and the soon-to-launch channel ITV3.

After a rocky start, ITV2 has turned a corner, becoming the third most watched non-terrestrial channel, and ITV is doubling its programme budget to pounds 48 million. At current growth rates, ITV2 will be bigger than Sky One by 2006.

So far this year, ITV1 ad revenue was up 3.7 per cent for the first six months of the year compared with the same period last year. When ...