“I think for ITV, what people love are these big events that pull all the generations of the family together. Big entertainment, big dramas and I would include very much as part of that, sport. The Champions League is fantastic and I would expect us to want to continue to bid for sports rights,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
The broadcaster is expected to bid aggressively to hold on to the free-to-air rights to the Champions League, which have recently been put out to tender in the UK by Uefa’s sales agent Team Marketing.
Earnings at ITV increased by 16 per cent in 2010 to £1.5 billion (€1.73 billion/$2.44 billion), with the Fifa World Cup contributing significantly to a lift in advertising income. This autumn ITV will show the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
Crozier has put in place a five-year plan to try to turn around the broadcaster, producing more content in-house, making better use of the internet and exploring areas where revenue can be brought in by convincing viewers to pay for content.
“Over a 10-year period ITV lost about 40 per cent of its share of viewing because of increased choice. We were over-dependent on advertising that was very volatile. We hadn’t produced a big new hit of our own since 2006 and our creative output had struggled. We lost a lot of creative talent and had severely under-invested online and we had no access to pay revenues. That’s our starting point. What we’ve been doing this year has been concentrating on fixing that,” he said.