SOME of ITV’s biggest stars may have to take a pay cut as the broadcaster battles to trim its budgets while advertising income plunges.

Michael Grade, the executive chairman, has indicated there will be no sacred cows among top talent such as Ant and Dec and Simon Cowell, who have golden-handcuff deals with the network. The contracts of several senior Coronation Street actors have already been renegotiated. “When there is a downturn of this severity, everybody has got to share the pain - the talent, the independent producers, the in-house producers,” Grade said.

ITV is cutting 1,000 jobs, including 430 from its regional newsrooms, in response to tough market conditions. Grade added: “When Tesco goes through a consumer downturn, it goes to its suppliers and says you have got to help us - everybody works together to get through it.”

Only 18 months ago Ant and Dec were locked in with a three-year deal reportedly worth £15m each. Cowell, the linchpin of top-rated shows The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, has a contract valued at £20m that also runs for three years.

Grade warned that stars could not be expected to be paid as much as they had been in recent years, when Jonathan Ross sealed an £18m, three-year deal with the BBC. He added: “Undoubtedly, the natural trend of the talent market is downwards because the BBC is not that flush with money and Channel 4 is hurting. Who else is in the bidding for the big talent?”

Paying presenters and actors is one of ITV’s biggest costs, but many of them are contracted to independent producers who make the shows on ITV’s behalf.

Grade said last week he was considering handing back ITV’s broadcast licence to regulator Ofcom, freeing it from obligations to air news, regional output and drama quotas.

The issue is a main plank of Ofcom’s review of public-service broadcasting. The regulator insists that more than just the BBC produce commercially unviable programmes such as regional news and challenging drama. However, it needs to draw up new incentives as the value of the analogue-broadcast spectrum given to ITV and Channel 4 declines as the TV signal goes digital by 2012.

Ofcom calculates there is up to £235m of “replacement public funding” required. It could ask the BBC to share its licence fee with Channel 4, which last Friday finally abandoned plans to splash £10m on the launch of three digital radio stations.

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