ITV executive chairman Michael Grade has accused regulators and the government of a "knee-jerk" reaction to obesity by imposing restrictions on TV junk food and drink advertising.

Mr Grade said the restrictions on food and drink advertising to under-16s, unveiled by Ofcom last year, are ineffective and patronised consumers.

"I'm not opposed to regulation. What concerns me is that [when] any special interest group pops up and gets a campaign going and makes a fuss, successive governments' knee-jerk reaction is we should be seen to be doing something, 'I know, let's impose some advertising restrictions, that will shut them up'," he added, speaking at the Voice of the Listener and Viewer spring conference in London today.

"It doesn't have any effect. Does anybody honestly believe if there was no advertising there'd be no obesity? It completely underestimates the relationship between viewers and advertisers." Earlier this month it was revealed that restrictions on junk food ads are to be widened to cover non-broadcast media, although using a different set of rules to those Ofcom is applying to TV campaigns.

But Mr Grade said such restrictions do not work. "It patronises the consumer in a way that completely misunderstands the role of advertising," he added.

"It's about time the advertising industry and whoever is involved in that side of things made our voices heard. Banning advertising and highly regulating advertising is not the answer to the nation's problems," Mr Grade said.

He added that "successive governments" have tried to impose restrictions on media in an effort to get the sector to do their work for them.

Mr Grade compared the recent restrictions on junk food advertising in programmes seen by children to Mrs Thatcher's ban on TV stations airing the direct speech of Sinn Fein MPs in the 80s.

"It's classic political thinking - let's not give them the oxygen of publicity. What did it change? It changed nothing. Why didn't the government ban Sinn Fein? Don't get the media to do their work for them," he said.

"That's what they are trying to do with advertising, [saying] 'I know, we can tinker with advertising.' Life's more complicated than that."

Mr Grade went on to confirm that he is still reviewing ITV's schedule, including whether or not to move the late evening news bulletin from 10.30pm.

Speaking about suggestions that News at Ten could return, he did not rule out a move, saying "You never say you're not going to do anything."

But he added: "Rowing back from the position we're in is incredibly difficult. It's incredibly complex. You can't look at news in isolation. You have to start unpicking the whole architecture [of the schedule].

"It's true to say one of the things I'm doing is looking at both our programme development plans for next year and looking at the schedule as a whole to see if we can improve our position and services to viewers and our commercial success.

I'm seeing if there is any way to reconfigure the whole of the schedule in order to give us greater competitive schedule. The news is a part of the schedule."

Mr Grade also warned of a "high-definition TV divide", unless spectrum is made available for high-definition TV on Freeview through government dispensation.

Otherwise, he said, satellite will be given a monopoly, leaving viewers having to pay more.

"We've seen off the digital divide, only to see a high-definition divide. What an own goal," added Mr Grade.

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