Jeff Henry, director of ITV Consumer is now on stage. His message: television is alive and kicking! ITV channels reach 81% of the population and the free to air model is sound, he says. Now they are making the journey to free to screen. The aim is to be the UK’s favourite source of free entertainment. The reason: the online advertising opportunity is strong. By 2010 he wants to have £150m of online advertising and he is confident because, he says, of the new ITV.com – which, I note, doesn’t yet support the Mac! This includes user generated content (Jeff claims that ITV invented user generated content – through You’ve Been Framed) and web-only commissioned content.

He finishes his talk with a clip of Paul Potts on Britain’s got Talent. The challenge – three times as many people watched this on YouTube as watched it on ITV. That is the challenge that ITV.com is aiming to meet.

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