ITV Posts Revenue, Profit Gains

Total revenues at ITV were up 3 percent in 2018 to £3.2 billion ($4.3 billion), helped in part by gains at ITV Studios.

“ITV’s operational performance across 2018 was strong despite the uncertain economic and political environment,” said Chief Executive Carolyn McCall. “ITV is making good progress as we invest in our More than TV strategy—repositioning the ITV brand, developing our data and digital capabilities, increasing our ability to offer addressable advertising and expanding our direct to consumer activities. Cost savings, which will partly offset this essential investment are on track.”

McCall continued, “We have started 2019 with strong onscreen and online viewing. However, the economic and political headwinds for the U.K. will have an effect on the advertising market and while ITV is increasingly diversified, we remain sensitive to this. We continue to be very focused on delivering in the areas we can control and actively mitigating the factors outside the company’s control. We have a robust balance sheet which enables us to make the right investment decisions to build a growing and sustainable business for the future and to deliver returns to shareholders.”

Advertising revenues at the media group were up just 1 percent to £1.8 billion ($2.4 billion), as gains in online offset declines in spot advertising. ITV forecasts that total ad revenues will be down 3 to 4 percent in the first quarter of 2019.

ITV Studios revenues were up 6 percent to £1.7 billion ($2.3 billion). U.K. revenues were flat at £695 million ($925 million), while U.S. revenues dropped by 21 percent to £245 million ($326 million). Outside of those two markets, revenues were up 32 percent to £516 million ($687 million). ITV Studios Global Entertainment’s revenues increased by 14 percent to £214 million ($285 million).

ITV also generated £81 million ($108 million) in direct-to-consumer revenues, via SVOD (ITV Hub+ in the U.K., BritBox in the U.S. and Canada and Cirkus in Europe) competitions and live and pay-per-view events. ITV today announced that it is in the final stages of talks with the BBC to bring BritBox to the U.K. as an SVOD proposition.