ROGER PARRY, chairman of Johnston Press and of Future, the magazine publisher, has teamed up with Merrill Lynch, the investment bank, and a private equity alliance to consider an approach for ITV, The Times has learnt.

Although Mr Parry confirmed last night that he has been working with the US bank “for months” with a view to a possible approach for the broadcaster, he refused to identify the party — or parties — that ultimately would fund an approach.

Last night, ITV was valued at £5.1 billion. However, it is understood that a number of private equity houses are looking at a possible bid for the broadcaster after the failure of two approaches from a consortium led by Greg Dyke, the former Director-General of the BBC. Those thought to be looking at ITV include KKR, Providence and Permira. City sources insisted that any approach by Mr Parry to ITV would not be made in the short term.

The interest from Mr Parry has emerged after Mr Dyke’s consortium yesterday formally abandoned its second bid for ITV. Mr Dyke’s withdrawal — ending ten days of drama — came after ITV’s board had rejected a revised 130p cash offer on Thursday night.

ITV rejected the bid amid complaints that the takeover plan would have been “unduly risky” because it involved an injection of £2.9 billion of extra debt, which would have enabled the venture capital consortium to buy the broadcaster on the cheap.

ITV, advised by Lazard, said that it would have “enabled the consortium to buy, for less than £1.3 billion, a 48 per cent stake in a company which, immediately prior to the leak of the consortium’s approach, had a market capitalisation of £4.8 billion”.

In addition to the possibility of fending off future expressions of interest, Charles Allen, the chief executive of ITV, is to face demands from two shareholders, Fidelity and UBS, the fund managers that supported Mr Dyke’s approach for ITV, for more aggressive share-price performance.

ITV will have to improve relations with key investors after it emerged that Fidelity, holding 13 per cent, and UBS, with 4 per cent, were sympathetic to the venture capital syndicate, which wanted to replace Mr Allen with Mr Dyke.

Fidelity — which led the campaign to oust Michael Green as ITV’s chairman-elect — has long been dissatisfied with the company’s share-price performance.

ITV’s shares have lagged behind the FTSE 100 since the company’s creation in February 2004. A pound invested in ITV then would be worth 86p today, but if it had been put in the FTSE 100, it would be worth 134p. After rejection of the bid, ITV shares eased 5¾p to 119¼p yesterday.

Although the ITV board’s recommendation to shareholders to reject the bid was unanimous, directors were told at Thursday night’s meeting that investors were likely to demand improved share-price performance. The broadcaster is expected to return more cash to shareholders — possibly raising its £300 million programme to £1 billion, although it otherwise believes its strategy to stem the loss of audience share from ITV1 and to grow revenues elsewhere is essentially correct.

Lorna Tilbian, of Numis Securities, said: “There’s no doubt the board did the right thing. What was proposed was a toxic combination of financial and operational gearing.” The affair “had made the company a lot more shareholder-friendly”, she added.

Mr Dyke’s bid team — Apax Partners, Goldman Sachs and Blackstone — had argued that ITV lacked “creative leadership” and had proposed cutting its programme budget of £950 million.

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