ITV giants end talks on merger

Nick Goodway12 April 2012

ITV broadcasters Granada and Carlton Communications announced that they had broken off merger talks today after the London weekday licence holder's shares shot up by 14 per cent yesterday.

The two, which share 92 per cent of ITV's audience, have been moving towards a single company for months although this is still barred by legislation.

The Government signalled in November that it will change the law to enable ITV to compete against new broadcasters like BSkyB, but this is unlikely to happen until next year. Meanwhile, the two companies have seen advertising tumble and spent hundreds of millions of pounds on their loss-making joint venture ITV Digital.

Carlton and Granada were looking at combining parts of their businesses ahead of the change of the law, and analysts still believe a merger to form a £4.6 billion company is likely.

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