ITV Delivers Q1 Revenue Gains

Revenues at ITV plc were up 18 percent to £834 million ($1.03 billion) in the first quarter, including a 16 percent gain in advertising revenues.

“ITV has achieved strong Q1 revenues driven by a robust operational and financial performance, with 23 percent revenue growth in ITV Studios, a 16 percent increase in total advertising revenue as expected and 24 percent increase in digital revenues,” said Carolyn McCall, chief executive at ITV. “We are focused on the three core drivers of value for ITV. We are growing Studios with a strong quarter and an exciting pipeline of scripted and unscripted programs as we further diversify the business by genre, by geography and by customer and grow ahead of the market. In Media and Entertainment, we maintained the strength of our linear business, where we secured 93 percent of the largest commercial audiences. And we are making good progress in our goal to supercharge streaming by increasing our hours of content by 50 percent in the quarter to 6,000 hours and making available the majority of scripted programs in full for streaming at the same time as the initial broadcast.

“All of this provides a solid foundation for ITVX, our free, ad-funded streaming service, which is on track for launch in Q4, and we remain confident that we will deliver at least £750 million ($922.8 million) of digital revenue by 2026.”

ITV Studios delivered revenues of £458 million ($563.5 million) in the quarter. Media and entertainment revenues grew to £545 million ($670.6 million).