£1.5 BILLION FLOAT OF ONDIGITAL

GRANADA Media and Carlton Communications will decide within two weeks whether to proceed with a £1.5 billion float of Ondigital, their terrestrial television service.
If they do go ahead in the autumn it is expected that no more than 20 per cent of the company will be offered to shareholders.
ONdigital currently has 800,000 subscribers and states that they are on track for their 1 million target at the end of this year.
Charles Allen, chairman of Granada, said a decision to float ONdigital could not be taken until ITV ownership issues had been decided.
Granada bought United News & Media's ITV interests for £1.8 billion in cash and shares after the collapse of the merger between United and Carlton.
Allen also said that he would like to see the creation of four or five regional creative centres to stop any drift of television programme production to the south of England.
He wanted to see ITV companies and the BBC co-operating on sharing infrastructure, as is about to happen in Manchester. The rival broadcasters could then compete with the new programmes made at regional centres of excellence.
Allen said that he also hoped to explore in the next few weeks the opportunities offered by creating an Internet portal for ITV (itv.com).
At present, the leading ITV companies concentrate on having their own websites.