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Carlton and United merger

What if (February 2005)

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tvmercia Founding member
jason posted:
The aim then was to ensure that Granada remained the largest part of any merged ITV company, so taking over complete control. In that sense it is money well spent.

Now however there is no particular incentive for ITV to take over two small franchises that don't have much more room for cost-cutting. So they'll bide their time.

this post from over in the smg takeover thread got me thinking. had carlton and united actually merged several years ago, how different would things be now?

prior to the carlton-granada merger (which undoubtedly would have happened anyway) would we have seen united-carlton (or whatever they would have called themselves) be as brand conscious as carlton were? would the united-carlton regions have pushed ahead with location idents in the way carlton did? would the company have wanted to centralise operations, like transmission and admin in birmingham or southampton?

the united-carlton business would probably have been a more equal merger partner for granada, in which case would we have seen more carlton people survive the takeover. would they have let the carlton name disappear? and would they have insisted that a carlton/united production centre remained post merger?
BO
boring_user_name
If Carlton and United had merged, why would history have progressed in the same way regarding other issues? For example, the board of Carlton/United possibly wouldn't have joined Granada in creating ITV Digital. This could have resulted in Granada doing it alone, and in effect losing twice as much money as it did. This could have resulted in a takeover by the hypothetical Carlton/United.
The ITV Network could look very different.

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