ITV boss casts fresh doubt over contract with Clarkson
THE chief executive of ITV has cast fresh doubt over its relationship with Jeremy Clarkson as she refused to say if his contract as host of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? would be renewed.
Dame Carolyn Mccall declined to say if the former Top Gear star would be allowed to continue as presenter of the quiz show after its next season following a controversial column about the Duchess of Sussex.
She said the broadcaster had been “really, really crystal clear” in its response to Mr Clarkson’s article in The Sun, in which he said he “hated” Meghan and had dreamed of her being paraded through British towns and publicly shamed. Dame Carolyn said: “Kevin [Lygo, ITV’S director of TV] has been very overt about the comments being awful. I’ve said there’s no place for those comments on ITV – and they weren’t on ITV, they were in The Sun – so no, I don’t think there’s a washover onto the brand.”
She said ITV was contractually committed to a further series of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, which is currently being filmed, but that there were no further commitments beyond that series “as is typical with such shows where we make commissioning decisions on a series-by-series basis”.
It came as ITV suffered a drop in profits and warned of a looming slowdown in the advertising market. The I’m A Celebrity broadcaster reported a 13pc fall in pre-tax profits to £672m in 2022, down from £774m the previous year. The decline was driven by a 1pc fall in advertising revenues, while the company also splashed out heavily on its new streaming service
ITVX. ITV spent an extra £20m on new shows for ITVX last year and plans to ramp up investment to an additional £160m in 2023. In its first two months, ITVX attracted 1.5m new registrations, while total streaming hours grew 69pc.
But the broadcaster warned of a “challenging” outlook for advertising revenues, which are expected to fall 11pc in the first quarter and remain down as much as 15pc in April.
Dame Carolyn said: “[Many advertisers at the moment] are protecting profits by being very, very tight on all their costs until they see more clearly how this year is going to pan out.”