ITV underlines growing confidence in TV ad market
ITV is confident the TV ad market will improve this year, forecasting a 6 per cent rise in total ad revenues across its family of channels in the first 4 months of this year, up from a 2 per cent increase in 2013.
By Sarah Vizard
The broadcaster says it expects its growth to outpace the wider market due to a strong schedule this year that includes the World Cup. The broadcaster fell behind the wider market in 2013, with figures from the Advertising Association/Warc estimating that TV ad sales were up 3.3 per cent last year.
ITV is hoping to boost ad revenue by segmenting audiences, launching new channels such as ITVBe which is aimed at young females. The channel is expected to go live later this year and follows the launch of ITV’s first pay-TV channel, ITV Encore.
Revenues at its online, pay and interactive business, which includes ITV Player, increased 16 per cent, with ITV expecting double-digit growth to continue through 2014 helped by ITV Encore. Overall broadcast and online revenues were up 3 per cent.
The commercial broadcaster saw overall revenues rise 8 per cent to £2.7bn in 2013, boosted by a 20 per cent increase in revenues at ITV studios to £857m. It bought independent producers including The Garden and Big Talk last year and has not ruled out further acquisitions as it attempts to rebalance its business and increase non-advertising revenue.
However, ITV has said it has no plans to buy Channel 5 from owner Richard Desmond, according to Reuters. Bids for the broadcaster are due by tomorrow (27 February) morning.
CEO Adam Crozier says: “All parts of the business are progressing well as we continue to rebalance ITV. While we’ve made good progress to date there is still much to do.”
