ITV has sold social networking site Friends Reunited for £25m, four years after buying it for £170m in December 2005.

It is expected that the buyer Brightsolid, a genealogy firm owned by publisher DC Thomson, will merge its online operation FindMyPast.com with Genes Reunited, a subsidiary of Friends Reunited.

Outgoing ITV chairman Michael Grade denied that his firm had overpaid for Friends in the first place and was quoted as saying the amount was reasonable at the time. Reportedly, Grade added that £25m "was the best price we could get".

Though Grade maintains the purchase made sense four years ago, during that time Friends has been eclipsed by more popular rivals Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and therefore lost considerable value.

Badly hit by a declining advertising market, ITV made a pre-tax loss of £105m for the first six months of 2009. While this compares with a £1.5bn loss in the same period last year, the 2008 figure was hit by a £1.6bn charge as the company wrote down the value of some of its broadcasting businesses.

The firm’s sales fell by 12 per cent to £909m, with net advertising revenue also declining by 15 per cent during the period.

However, online revenue at the firm was up six per cent to £18m. Video views on itv.com hit 116 million during the first six months of 2009, compared with 31 million in the same period in 2008.

Last year, ITV chief operations officer John Cresswell said the online operation is considered one of the more important business areas and would continue to receive investment.

"We are spending a lot of money on winning more viewers, not necessarily because we can monetise that, but because we can stop other channels from getting viewers and therefore increase our market share," he said at the time.