Michael Grade, executive chairman of ITV outlined a five-year, self-funding strategy to increase revenue, improve programming and expand its online audience.

Grade's plan – envisaging a doubling of income from ITV Productions to £1.2 billion (E1.71bn) by 2012 and a quintupling of Internet revenue to £150 million within three years – hinged on self-sufficiency. “We will pay for new investment in content through greater efficiencies throughout the business,” he said. “The first move here is reducing the number of regional news programmes from 17 to nine.”

Categories: Articles, Broadcast