Strong Q1 Gains for ITV

LONDON: Improvements in the British ad market helped drive ITV’s first-quarter revenues up by 11 percent to £500 million.

TV advertising revenues for ITV were up 12 percent in the period, while external revenues from ITV Studios gained 7 percent to £64 million driven by its international business.

"The continuing volatility in the TV advertising market underlines the need for us to keep firmly focussed on our five year Transformation Plan," said Adam Crozier, chief executive, "While we are still in the early stages, the foundations are now being put in place for a more balanced, creatively dynamic and robust business. We have had a positive start to the year, outperforming the TV advertising market in Q1 with advertising revenues up by 12 percent. We expected that the ad market in Q2 would be difficult given the very tough comparators and the continued economic uncertainty and—while this has proved to be the case—we still expect to see an increase in ad revenues for the first half of the year. As we anticipated, tough ITV1 World Cup comparators in June mean we may slightly underperform the market in the first half. While we expect to outperform the market across the whole of the year, we remain cautious about the economic outlook."