Talking of Channel 4, the boss of the commercial broadcaster, Andy Duncan, has aired his concerns over BSkyB's previously reported purchase of a 17.9% stake in ITV at the end of last week. Speaking at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch Duncan said that recent changes in media ownership in the UK, coupled with the estimated £10 million that the recent ban on junk food advertising during kids programming will cost his company, had left his network feeling "pretty small and pretty vulnerable".
On the Sky/ITV deal he said: "It would be helpful to know Ofcom and the Government were looking at it properly. It is important that they [ITV and Sky] are effectively standalone businesses. We've clearly got mixed feelings about it. It was a bold move by Sky that seems to have scuppered the NTL deal. But we are concerned how it will work operationally. News is quite an interesting area. ITV is looking to renegotiate its contract with ITN. Sky has Sky News. What does it mean in terms of the plurality of news in this country? Also, what is ITV's corporate line now on Freesat? Putting the BBC to one side, putting ITV and Sky together, it's a big chunk of the British TV and media... It could mean undue and unfair cooperation".
As previously reported, Richard Branson, as a stakeholder in NTL, whose merger proposal was turned down by ITV this week, has asked the Office Of Fair Trading to investigate Sky's purchase of ITV shares.