[Rdd]

To recall, under the old ITV federal system there were “Channel 3 Networking Arrangements” which governed how the ITV Network was to be run. This was a requirement of the Broadcasting Act 1990. The form of the networking arrangements included a central body, ITV Network Limited, a company limited by guarantee with no share capital of which the fifteen licensees were members, which was responsible for the ITV Network schedule.

The old arrangements were designed for 15 companies, but after 2004 there was effectively one big company (ITV plc) that effectively controlled the network. The articles of association of ITV Network Limited effectively allowed ITV plc to take decisions unilaterally as it had the majority of the votes at Council.

STV had a number of gripes: mainly how much it was paying for a schedule that it increasingly had no say in, but also the fact that ITV plc effectively adopted the ITV brand, which was supposed to be collectively owned, as if it were its own. So it started dropping network programmes, which was fine - it was only ever obliged to broadcast network news bulletins - but also adjusting what it was paying into the network budget to account for the dropped programmes, which wasn’t. IIRC FA Cup football was affected at one point most controversially.

The settlement led to the end of the old networking arrangements, replaced by a network affiliation agreement, getting rid of the remnants of the old federal structure and giving ITV plc full responsibility for running the network, with STV and UTV as “affiliates”, effectively buying the network schedule from ITV.