ITV wants to be free of obligations to air a fixed amount of news, current affairs and regional programming when digital switchover is completed in 2012.

The commercial broadcaster’s lobbying has emerged as the Competition Commission extended its enquiry into BSkyB’s purchase of a 17.9 per cent stake in ITV until January 2, because of the sensititivity of the issue.

Michael Grade, ITV’s chairman, said: “What’s not needed is any kind of genre prescription . . . regulation that says you have to do this type of programme.”

He added that the only requirement that should be placed on ITV is to invest in British programming: “I want the freedom to invest in my way in the market,” he said.

Mr Grade’s remarks were made at the Royal Television Society at Cambridge on Saturday, but were not reported over the weekend.

ITV is required to show 365 hours of news annually on ITV1, including 125 in peak time, as well as 78 hours of current affairs plus 5½ hours of regional news each week. Although ITV says that it does not want to cut back on these services, the end of genre quotas would allow it to.

The broacaster is keen to target regional programmes, and last week it said that it wanted to cut about £40 million from its regional news spending and reduce the number of regional bulletins from 17 to ten. At that time, however, ITV did not make clear its desire to be free of hourly quotas.

Children’s, arts and religious programming - all genres that attract relatively few viewers – used to be subject to time quotas; they are no longer. ITV has stopped showing children’s programmes in the mid-afternoon on ITV1 as it tries to compete with Channel 4’s daytime schedule.

Last week Ofcom kicked off a year-long review into the future of the “public service” obligations that exist on Britain’s principal commercial broadcasters: ITV, Channel 4 and Five. The exercise will be the subject of heavy lobbying by all three networks, with ITV believing that in an environment of more than 350 channels it should not be as regulated.

The Competition Commission’s decision to extend its enquiry into the Sky shareholding in ITV comes as it grapples with what it describes as “a complex reference dealing with both competition and media public interest considerations”. Sky is 39.1 per cent owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times.

At issue is whether Sky’s shareholding amounts to a “substantial lessening of competition in broadcasting” because it acts as a block to an ITV takeover, and whether it creates a link between the two companies’ news operations that is a lessening of plurality.

ITV has argued that the Sky shareholding could act as block on any transactions requiring a 75 per cent affirmative vote, because not all investors cast their ballots. A verdict had been due to be sent to John Hutton, the Business Secretary, on November 7. However, he agreed to the Commission’s request for a one-off eight-week extension until January 2 – although officals hope to publish preliminary findings early next month and send their final analysis to Mr Hutton before Christmas.

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