GREEN SPEAKS OUT AT CARLTON'S AGM

CARLTON Communications Plc, one of the UK’s leading commercial broadcasters, held their Annual General Meeting in London on March 1.
Chairman of Carlton Communications, Michael Green, said: “2000 was a year of transition for Carlton. We agreed the sale of our Products and Technicolor businesses. We initiated the consolidation of ITV, acquired HTV and won the sales contracts for Scottish Television and Grampian. Gerry Murphy joined as our Chief Executive Officer. Carlton are now a highly focused media company with businesses in free and pay television, programme making and distribution, interactive television and the internet.
“Our strategy is clear: to grow our media assets and maximise their value. We are looking at opportunities to invest in our businesses and expand in media, including partnerships with North American and Continental media companies, such as our co-operation agreement with Thomson multimedia.
“The UK television advertising market is currently subdued compared to last year's buoyant levels. We believe that a resumption of like-for-like growth is unlikely before the fourth quarter of Carlton's financial year. ITV's advertising revenue in the first four months of our current financial year was 5 per cent lower than last year.
“ITV's aim is to beat its free-to-air rivals decisively in peak time and maintain its position as the most popular channel in multi-channel homes. The ITV schedule has made a strong start to calendar 2001, with an average peak time viewing share of 38.6 per cent in the first seven weeks - 1 share point up on last year and almost 12 percentage points ahead of BBC1.
“ITV's peak time viewing share in multi-channel homes is 32 per cent, a lead of 9 percentage points over the BBC and significantly ahead of the commercial competition, including Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky One.
“In 2001, investment in digital media, excluding interest, is likely to be at a broadly similar level to 2000. Additional investment in ONdigital, as subscriber numbers grow and ONnet increases its penetration, will be partially offset by lower investment in digital channels. Carlton now have a 50 per cent interest in TasteNetwork, our joint venture with Sainsbury's, as well as Carlton.com our wholly-owned entertainment portal.”
Michael Green concluded: “The challenge for Carlton in the year ahead is to build on our strong assets in UK commercial television. In the current year we are on target to book close to £1 billion of advertising revenue, invest over £200m in new television production and make secondary and international sales of television programmes and other properties of £80m. We are partners in Britain's most watched television channel and an interactive pay television platform with 1 million subscribers and rising.” (CD)