Sadly Cartlon will win the ITV battle purely because a Cartlon/United combination is a more acceptable size to the regulators in the short-term. Granada have already started to conceed defeat and suggested that their growth strategy may lie outside of ITV and in Europe.

>Sadly Cartlon will win the ITV battle purely because a Cartlon/United combination is a more acceptable

WHAT!?!
The ITC WONT let them merge because of UNM's newspaper interests, the only possible merger will be that of Granada Carlton, and that will not take place either as both companies hold too much of everything...
Stop talking total shite

The ITC never stop Murdoch from owning things he shouldn't- so why should they in this case? As long as it's 'economically viable' or course.

The ITC have said that it was fine for the two companies to merge, but it was sent to the competition board who said it couldn't happen.

Steven Byers is expected to give the go-ahead to any of the merger senarios next week, he just want to see them scap it out and solve his problem

I went to a BFI conference today and David Elstein (Head of Channel 5) had something to say about this showdown... If anyone is interested I'll post it up - there is quite a bit of it.

>Sadly Cartlon will win the ITV battle purely because a Cartlon/United combination is a more acceptable size to the regulators in the short-term. Granada have already started to conceed defeat and suggested that their growth strategy may lie outside of ITV and in Europe.

Granada have said that they would rather have ITV divided up again to defeat Carlton.