Why ITV failed Friends Reunited

Last Modified: 04 Mar 2009
By: Benjamin Cohen

I'm probably one of the few people who think that buying friends reunited wasn't a particularly stupid act by ITV.

Sure the channel paid well over the odds but it was one of the most visited and hottest British websites back in 2005.

It mirrored the £330m takeover of social network MySpace by the Rupert Murdoch owned News Corporation.

Arguably it was ITV's management of the site that led to today's announcement that it was looking for a buyer.

I have a little personal experience of selling an internet company to an "old media" company who didn't quite understand the web and ultimately didn't capitalise on its potential.

Back in 2005 ITV had no real web presence.

G-Wizz, the Granada owned portal and internet service provider closed in 2001 and ITV hadn't properly launched itv.com. There was certainly no streamed content and no online revenue.

Taking over Friends Reunited taught ITV a lot about how the web works, introducing them to online advertising and as Michael Grade said today, itv.com wouldn't be as big as it is now without Friends Reunited.

Link to the full article at Channel 4