MEDIA FORUM: Can ITV restore faith in its reputation as a player? - Can Carlton and Granada just pretend that the ITV Digital saga was all a bad dream or is ITV's credibility beyond repair? Alasdair Reid asks.(Brief Article)

The sense of relief was almost palpable at Carlton and Granada last week. One or two probably experienced at least a twinge of sadness, and for a handful of others, whose careers have been tarnished by the whole sorry saga, the response was more taciturn but for those whose business is primarily the mainstream ITV1 brand the last chapter in the ITV Digital saga couldn't have come soon enough.

Well you would be relieved, wouldn't you? If only for the reason that it feels rather nice when you stop beating your head against a brick wall.

By and large, the City seems to agree - and although the Carlton and Granada sales prices have been settling down again, they leapt at the initial news that the end was nigh for ITV Digital.

That doesn't always mean very much - we all know how short-term the City can be. But there are many, especially on the commercial side of the two ITV companies, who believe that there is a longer-term dividend here. They have realised that some agencies and advertisers have never taken ITV Digital seriously, seeing it as a flawed concept that was badly managed from day one. So once more, ITV's sales people can go into the negotiation bear pit with their heads held high.

On the other hand, there might be a bit of nip and tuck still left in this one. One airtime trader joked that in the future he will sign off deals in much the same spirit as ITV Digital entered into its Nationwide football contracts.

Simon Wallis, a director of WestLB Panmure, says that the immediate benefits to Carlton and Granada are obvious, but agrees that this isn't the whole issue here. 'It's a good move for Carlton and Granada to cut their losses,' he says, 'but the downside is independent of what happened to ITV Digital. Just because that failed it doesn't mean that the challenges faced by the players in free-TV have gone away.'

Quite. In other words, going backwards isn't really an option. In the 21st century, old-fashioned commercial broadcasters, such as ITV, need some evolutionary direction.