ITV has been holding acquisition talks with online ad networks eType, Ad2One and Unanimis over the past month in a bid to raise online ad profits, reports Brand Republic and Mad.co.uk. The move, which fits ITV's strategy to raise digital revenues to USD300m by 2010, comes as the network predicts overall ad revenues for the first half of 2008 to flatten due to market downturns.

While ITV and its prospective targets have not commented on the talks, ITV is currently bidding against Ad2One and Channel 4 to sell ads around BBC's online programming, reports The Daily Telegraph. This will be for programmes shown on the online TV network and VoD platform, Kangaroo. It will show ITV, BBC and Channel 4 shows and is due to launch later this year.

In a profit announcement earlier this week, ITV said that advertising revenue was up 2% during Q1 2008. However, against predictions that the market will dip by 1% in the first half of 2008, it said it expects this level off.

Overall group profits for the quarter were up 3% to GBP492m (USD959m), leading the broadcaster to claim that its planned turnaround was working. However, broadcast revenues were down 2% to GBP409m (USD797m), largely due to the fall-out from the previous summer's phone-in scandal. This caused premium-rate phone-ins and competitions to be suspended for a time.

As part of the quarterly results, ITV also said it would introduce further cost cutting from 2009 and that it would freeze its programme budget, reports the Financial Times.