ITV Reports Revenue Gains at Studios Division

ITV plc expects revenues at ITV Studios this year to outperform pre-pandemic levels, reporting a 16 percent gain to £1.4 billion for the first nine months of the year.

ITV plc overall revenues were up 6 percent to £2.5 billion, more than half of which came from non-ad-based sources. Media and entertainment revenues slipped 2 percent to £1.6 billion, with total ad revenues down 2 percent, despite gains in digital advertising. Total ad revenues are projected to be down between 1 percent and 1.5 percent this year, with the media group expecting the coverage of the World Cup to help offset the impact of broader macroeconomic trends. In Q3, ITV saw its ad revenues fall by 14 percent.

“ITV Studios continues to outperform the growing content market and will exceed 2019 revenues in 2022,” said Carolyn McCall, chief executive. “It’s on track to deliver on all of its KPI targets and has a formidable slate to power it into 2023 as we further diversify the business by genre, geography and customer.”

McCall continued, “We are making good progress on our new, free, ad-funded streaming service ITVX, which will be rolled out across devices and platforms in the coming weeks with the full launch of new and exclusive content on December 8, in time to reach millions of viewers who will come to ITV for the FIFA World Cup. ITVX will supercharge our streaming business, providing viewers with a content-rich destination rather than a catch-up service and advertisers with valuable addressable audiences at scale. This will drive significant digital viewing and revenue growth, enabling ITV to deliver at least £750 million digital revenues by 2026.

“While we remain mindful of the macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, there’s strong operational momentum across both our studios and media and entertainment divisions as we continue to build a resilient, diversified business that can take advantage of the global growth in the demand for quality content and the desire of advertisers for both mass reach and data-led addressable advertising, targeting millions of U.K. viewers.”