STV will pay the remaining £10.8 million due to ITV from a settlement struck earlier this year in cash instalments after the failure of talks about the Scottish broadcaster dropping its membership of the channel 3 network.
In April, STV chief executive Rob Woodward agreed it would pay ITV, which is headed by Scot Adam Crozier, £18m after a dispute in which ITV claimed it was owed programme payments and STV said it was due withheld advertising revenues.
This followed STV's decision in 2009 to drop shows such as Midsomer Murders, arguing that it wanted a schedule more appropriate for Scottish viewers.
STV is meeting the first £7.2m of the bill this year by handing over £4.8m and receiving a £2.4m credit for ITV programmes it chose not to show in 2011.
STV had sought to give up full membership of the ITV network and operate as an affiliate on a pay-as-you-play basis for programmes it takes.
This would have allowed it to settle the remaining £10.8m by selling back the rights to programmes it had already paid for. However, talks have ended without agreement.
Therefore, STV will make 18 monthly payments of £600,000 from January 2012. These will be partially offset by credits from opt-outs from ITV programmes.
STV said the sums will be met from existing banking facilities.
It is understood that current negotiations over a new banking facility are unrelated to the ITV case.
As of June 30, STV had bank facilities totalling £70m, which are due to expire at the end of 2012. Its net debt stood at £57.5m.
An ITV spokesman said: "In April, STV agreed to pay ITV £18m to conclude a long-running legal dispute.
"At that time STV announced that it would pay £7.2m in cash to ITV with the remainder given in either programme rights or cash, depending on further discussions.
"We have since embarked on negotiations with STV for it to become an affiliate of the network as opposed to a full member. We have not been able to agree commercial terms with STV to achieve this and therefore the outstanding debt of £10.8m will now be paid to ITV under the existing terms of our agreement."
A spokeswoman for STV said: "At this stage, these discussions have concluded.
"We have decided the best way forward is to continue to work under these arrangements.
"We have agreed the processes by which we will work going forward."
The spokeswoman said STV, which took 95% of the ITV network schedule this year, will opt out of fewer hours of ITV network programming in 2012, although the schedule has still to be finalised.
It confirmed it will screen the third series of Downton Abbey.
''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article