KIDDERMINSTER Harriers are closely monitoring the dispute over television money which is vital to the survival of lower league soccer.

Third Division Harriers and their fellow Football League clubs have been told Granada and Carlton Communications must honour their £315m deal.

David Burns, the chief executive of the Football League, has informed club chairmen the ITV giants cannot scrap the ITV Sport deal, which is at the centre of the networks cash crisis.

The ITV Digital platform has cost £800m so far, and co-owners Granada and Carlton want to renegotiate the Nationwide League deal in order to shore up its losses.

But Mr Burns said in a letter to Kidderminster's Lionel Newton and his fellow league club chairmen that the companies are legally obliged to fulfil the three-year deal.

Meanwhile, Harriers hot shot Dean Bennett is de-termined to lift his tally of goals into double figures before the end of the season.

The 24-year-old midfielder notched his eighth of the campaign last Saturday when he grabbed an 87th minute winner in his side's 3-2 home victory over Hartlepool.

It made him Harriers' outright leading scorer with one more to his credit than striker Ian Foster.

Bennett now has a personal target of registering at least ten goals this season and believes Harriers are on the way back to scoring more freely.

He said: "As a team we feel we should have sc-ored more goals. If you look at the games at Swansea and against Macclesfield we had enough chances to have wrapped up the points but we ended up losing."