News Releases

Following a year of unprecedented online traffic growth across its sites, ITV today announces the integration of its online assets into its programming operations, under the direction of ITV Director of Television, Channels and Online, Peter Fincham.

The restructure will see all of ITV’s online assets which include video streaming and ITV programming – ITV.com, ITV Local, project Kangaroo, Friends Reunited, as well as Interactive and Gming – fully integrated with ITV’s family of broadcast channels. This will allow much closer co-operation between the broadcasting and online divisions, consistent with the 360° approach of the Turnaround Strategy.

Jeff Henry, Managing Director of ITV Consumer will oversee the transition process and has announced that he intends to stand down once this has been completed.

SDN, the DTT multiplex operator, will report to Director of Group Development & Strategy, Carolyn Fairbairn.

Michael Grade, Executive Chairman of ITV plc said: “Thanks to Jeff Henry and his team, this year our online businesses, in particular itv.com which is now a channel in its own right, have gone from strength to strength and we have seen unprecedented online growth in unique users and video views. Jeff has created valuable new revenue streams that we will continue to develop.

“With content at the heart of our Turnaround Strategy, it now makes sense to integrate fully all our platforms to ensure the very best of our content is available to viewers wherever they wish to view it. It is testament to Jeff Henry’s enormous commitment and success that we are able to do this now, ahead of our schedule, and I would personally like to thank Jeff for his contribution to ITV.”

Jeff Henry, Managing Director of ITV Consumer said: “With the re-launch of itv.com in 2007, we set out to combine the best of TV with the best of the web and create a service, unrivalled by any other commercial broadcaster, providing content streaming, catch-up and archive. ITV viewers are increasingly familiar with, and interacting with, our content and the demand for high quality video content is booming. Peter’s unrivalled commissioning expertise and passion for content will undoubtedly take our online businesses to the next level. I wish the team every success with the next phase of ITV’s online development.”

Peter Fincham, ITV Director of Television, Channels and Online, said: “While ITV viewers continue to watch our programming in their millions on TV, they are increasingly consuming ITV content online and via catch-up. By integrating all our platforms we can be sure we commission and deliver the best, most watched and most wanted content from ITV across all our platforms.”

Ben McOwen Wilson is appointed Director of Online with responsibility for all ITV’s new media businesses, reporting to Peter Fincham, with immediate effect.

ENDS

Enquiries:

ITV plc Tel: 0207 156 6000

Ruth Settle - Director of Corporate Communications

Louise Evans – Head of Press, Financial and Commercial

Sophy Silver – Head of Press, ITV Online

Notes to Editors

ITV Online incorporates itv.com, ITV Local, ITV Mobile, ITV Interactive and Friends Reunited, offering innovative and entertaining content to enhance viewers’ on air experience with online channel streaming, plus access to further ITV programming, clips and exclusive content. ITV Local offers local information, news and services and has launched dedicated channels in 2008 including travel and crime.

ITV.com had a record breaking month in October 2008, hitting 8.3m unique users – an increase of 42% year on year - and 12.5m video views, an increase of 550% year on year, helped by Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Brazilian Grand Prix, a busy weekend of football and the hugely popular X Factor. Itv.com’s newly launched football section of the website has also hit an all time high, reaching over half a million monthly unique users since launching at the start of the season. The Coronation Street and This Morning sections have also had record traffic, increasing by 115% (664K unique users) and 72% (627K unique users) on the previous month respectively.

Hitwise announced that ITV.com ranked 5th in its ‘Entertainment – Television’ category* from July to September 2008, based on share of UK visits.

ITV Local also continues to go from strength to strength, smashing all the records, with 1.1 million unique visitors and 5 million video plays, which represent year on year increases of 164% and 161% respectively. This site has been propelled to #1 within the Hitwise ‘News and Media - Community Directories and Guides’ category in this same period.

SDN is a UK based digital terrestrial television (DTT) multiplex operator, acquired by ITV plc in March 2005. It holds the licence from Ofcom to broadcast DTT channels over a specified bandwidth, and constitutes roughly a sixth of UK’s current DTT capacity, or a third of all commercially available capacity. Within SDN’s current capacity of up to nine full video streams, half is reserved under the 1996 Broadcasting Act for use by Five which broadcasts its three channels on DTT and sub-licenses the remainder of the capacity to Top Up TV. The other channels carried by SDN include QVC, Price Drop TV, Nuts TV, CITV, Bauer Radio, and Teletext.