Analysts fear ITV.co.uk faces bleak future

Ongoing talks between Granada Media and Carlton Communications to combine their internet efforts under the itv.co.uk brand have been viewed as a waste of time by analysts who are convinced that site has no future as a compelling destination.

Olivier Beauvillain, analyst at Jupiter MMXI, said itv.co.uk's obvious move would be in the provision of news. However, the existing competition is so strong as to make the attempt futile. He told silicon.com: "I don't think that they have a chance to make it one of the top sites in Europe. It will find it pretty tough and face a lot of competition from the BBC, Excite, the Guardian, Lycos, Sky, The Times and Yahoo! Itv.co.uk will also lose out in revenue terms to existing portals and ISPs." There is the potential for Granada and Carlton to reduce production costs by consolidating web content teams, but Tim Grimsditch, analyst at Forrester Research, agreed that itv.co.uk will find it tough to provide the sort of content that will make it one of the most popular European sites. He said: "ITV.co.uk doesn't have much validity. At the moment it isn't a huge destination for anything." Although Carlton has built strong brands with the likes of its film site popcorn.co.uk and its games site jamba.co.uk, to pull this under the umbrella of itv.co.uk would be a mistake claimed Grimsditch, as these are established brands in their own right. The two British media giants already have joint ownership of ONdigital and together own 90 per cent of the ITV franchises. The joining of their internet operations brings the companies even closer. Regulatory restrictions currently prevent Granada and Carlton from merging, although this will change in 2003 when Ofcom becomes operational. Part of Ofcom's thinking is to create stronger UK media brands, which could path the way for a merger between the two companies. Granada and Carlton both refused to comment on their plans for the site's content.