ITV loses advertising revenue much faster than it will lose Friends

Problems at the parent

ITV has been badly hit by the downturn in the advertising market. As one media banker put it: "The question for ITV is how do you deal with a recession? Advertising is down about 20 per cent."

One response last week was to make about 600 staff redundant and trim £65m off its programming budget, culminating in £245m in savings by 2011.

Michael Grade, the executive chairman, admitted: "Current conditions in advertising are the most challenging I have experienced in over 30 years in UK broadcasting. This is reflected both in our financial results for 2008 and the tough actions we are announcing today."

The business made a loss of over £2.7bn in 2008, against a £188m pre-tax profit the previous year – and that on a flat turnover of slightly more than £2bn.

The Friends Reunited sale will not make a massive difference to the company's problems, but is at least an acknowledgement that certain aspects of the business could have perhaps been grown more impressively.