ITV has hit back at STV’s countersuit saying that it is ‘wrongly attempting to claim a rebate’ following the Scottish broadcaster's decision to opt out of peak time ITV programming in favour of its own productions.

Earlier today, STV said that it would continued to refute the legal claim of £38m gross by ITV and that it will submit a ‘robust defence’ which will include a claim against ITV for £35m gross that it claimed is owed to it and offsets the ITV claim.

A spokesperson for ITV said:“STV is attempting retrospectively to opt out of an increasing number of peaktime programmes which contravenes existing agreements. The company is also wrongly attempting to claim a rebate against programmes which have been "written off". We are currently withholding monies from STV against this debt and currently believe the net debt is approximately £15 million to £20 million.

“We have been attempting to resolve this matter for more than a year but unfortunately our efforts have been unsuccessful. Given that we are a commercial organisation, with responsibilities to our shareholders, we were left with no option but to take legal action to recover this sizeable debt.

"ITV commenced legal proceedings against STV in September to recover a gross debt of £38million. This debt has accumulated as a result of STV not honouring its contractual contributions towards the Network Programme Budget.   

"As we stated in September, a substantiated shortfall has not been identified relating to revenues associated with the Advertising Sales Agreement and we are firmly of the opinion that STV has no grounds whatsoever to demand payment. We have been co-operative and supplied all documents relevant to the review which, in any case, we believe to be flawed. We will defend this claim vigorously together with any other related action which STV should choose to launch."