ITV Chasing Big Debtor

25 September 2009, filed under Debt Recovery

ITV and its network partner are at war over unpaid programming fees and revenue costs. This is just one of several issues between the partners.

ITV have launched a £38 million legal claim against its network partner STV in order to recover unpaid programming fees after STV announced that it was opting-out of more peak time shows. The latest show to ‘take the axe’ is ‘The Bill’.

A statement released by ITV claimed that the debt has accrued as a result of STV not honouring its contractual contribution towards the Network Programme Budget. STV have issued a response to this claiming its rights as the licence holder allows it to control its own schedule and opting-out is in accordance with the Networking Arrangements and the Devolution Contract, “STV will vigorously defend its position”.

The dispute has been ongoing and ITV claims to have made efforts to resolve the issue for over a year. In March 2009 ITV’s annual results revealed that there was an outstanding bill of £22m from STV. STV have continued to dispute this claim and have made the decision to ‘drop’ a growing amount of peak time shows which inevitably has led to the legal action by ITV.

ITV claims that STVs attempts to bring its own legal claims for a rebate against programs’ that have been ‘written off’ and never transmitted are wrong. STV have also made a claim against ITV with regards to revenues which should have been received on account of Advertising Sales. ITV are said to be withholding this against the debts incurred by STV of recent months.

STV have announced that after being involved in discussions for several months with ITV it is deeply disappointed with ITV “acting in a pre-emptive manner” and have yet to issue its own legal proceedings.

STV is attempting to regain control over its broadcasting schedule, in doing so it is offering more regionally based programmes. A finding by the courts that STV are in fact in breach of its contractual obligations under the agreements could lead to its demise.