Media Forum: Is TV trading probe needed?

Should there be a wider review of how airtime is sold, Alasdair Reid asks.

]Presumably, the Competition Commission drafted two press releases about Contract Rights Renewal, the formula linked to ITV's ad sales revenue, ready to go out in the week following the election. One, written with the possibility of an outright Tory victory in mind, announcing the immediate repeal of an outmoded airtime remedy that had clearly run its course.

And the second, for any other eventuality, reminding everyone that the Competition Commission is no-one's poodle and is duty-bound to act in the interests of as broad a constituency as possible - and in that light, CRR is very much a living and breathing necessity.

Clearly, we got the 'any-other-eventuality' release. David Cameron had pledged, at a stroke, to sweep away CRR, should he come to power. Now that he's part of a ventriloquist-style double act, the …