Tesco, Britain's most successful supermarket giant, rarely puts a foot wrong, but the retailer has experienced such a struggle to make its in-store TV advertising a success that it approached ITV for help.
The supermarket held preliminary discussions to sound out the broadcaster about taking over advertising sales for its 5,500 in-store televisions, which advertise brands and promotions on screens above shoppers at its top 100 stores.
The network politely but quickly rebuffed the advance, believing selling airtime on Tesco TV to advertisers was not in its strategic interest.
ITV, loth to offend one of its major advertisers, would not comment and Tesco said it never discussed supplier relationships.
But sources contacted by MediaGuardian.co.uk confirmed that Tesco made an approach to the broadcaster around March, with a view to ITV sales taking over the contract held by the billboard giant, JC Decaux.
The talks underline the difficulties supermarkets have in making in-store TV work.
Sainsbury's started to trial its own version - Fresh TV - in three stores last month, joining Asda, which commenced its Asda Live project last September in York and Wembley.
But it was Tesco that pioneered the concept by rolling out the service in 100 stores after its trial in March 2003.
JC Decaux was forced to slash its advertising rate card 30% at the start of the year after failing to attract satisfactory business, but it denies speculation that its contract is in jeopardy.
"Tesco are happy with where we are right now and we are a lot further down the track than anyone else right now," said Spencer Berwin, the group sales director for JC Decaux.
But the company, which has worked with Tesco for seven years, refused to detail when the Tesco TV contract would expire.
"There's no tender, there are no changes, there's nothing changing as far as that's concerned," Mr Berwin said.
"Has in-store TV met our expectations so far? The answer is probably yes. But it's early days yet and we need a degree of education upfront before we can see the rewards."
Tesco TV has been used by Colgate-Palmolive, Camelot, Disney, Warner Brothers, Nestlé, Unilever and home cleaning products' maker SC Johnson. Its top 100 stores play host to 17 million people over a fortnight making 8.5m shopping trips.
"We know that Tesco TV is working - particularly in relation to new product development, seasonal and impulse lines - by raising awareness and increasing sales. We continually ask our advertisers and customers what they want so that we ensure all Tesco media really delivers," a Tesco spokeswoman said.
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