ITV Ad Revenue Takes a Hit

LONDON: ITV has posted a 6-percent dip year-on-year in TV ad revenues for its third quarter, after a difficult summer because of the BBC’s London Olympics coverage.

The group’s external revenue was up 4 percent to £1.57 billion ($2.49 billion). Non-net advertising revenue gained 15 percent to £730 million ($1.16 billion). This was led by ITV Studios, which is expected to return a profit of more than £100 million ($158.7 million) this year.

TV ad revenue fell 10 percent in July, 9 percent in August and 1 percent in September. The group said that this still leaves the first nine months "in positive territory."

ITV1 saw its share of viewing fall 6 percent from the year-ago figures.

Adam Crozier, ITV’s chief executive, said, “We have made further progress in reshaping and rebalancing ITV to ensure the business is more robust both commercially and creatively. The momentum we are building in our non-NAR revenues has helped grow group revenues up 4 percent to £1,573 million in difficult economic conditions and with a broadly flat television advertising market.

“ITV Studios has performed strongly as our strategy of investing in the creative pipeline and talent again shows through in our results. We expect ITV Studios to report over £100 million of profit in 2012, and the number of new commissions and recommissions already secured for 2013 gives us confidence that there will continue to be good underlying growth in the Studios business.

“This has been an extraordinary year for U.K. television with many unique events including the Queen’s Jubilee, the London Olympics and the Paralympics. In fact 9 out of the top 10 programs aired will not return next year and as we expected this has affected our viewing performance. However, we do not expect our viewing performance in 2012 to impact our advertising share in 2013 and we are focused on growing our share of viewing next year.

“We have maintained our focus on cash and costs. Our financial position is strong with positive net cash of £90 million and we will deliver around £30 million of cost savings this year, £10 million ahead of our original target.

“The economic outlook remains uncertain and we continue to see monthly volatility in the U.K. television advertising market, but the underlying trends have not changed. Over the full year we expect ITV Family NAR to be broadly flat and that we will again outperform the television advertising market.”