ITV Half Year External Revenues Soar to $2 Billion

variety.com:

Naman Ramachandran U.K. broadcaster ITV’s total external revenue are up 8% at £1.67 billion ($2.04 billion), according to half year financial results released on Thursday.Carolyn McCall, ITV chief executive, said: “ITV has recorded a strong performance across the business with both our studios and media and entertainment divisions performing better in the first half than we expected at the beginning of the year.

Revenues in both divisions were up year on year and as a result total external revenue rose 8%.”“ITV Studios revenue was up 16%, growing ahead of the wider market, as we continue to diversify the business.

High end scripted hours grew 82% and revenue from streaming platforms grew strongly, now accounting for 19% of total revenues, up 3% points. “In M&E our investment in content, data and technology is already bearing fruit with digital advertising revenue up 20% driven by record levels of streaming on the ITV Hub, up 8% with 814 million streams in H1.“Despite the tough comparators of last summer, when the Euros and a rebounding economy drove record advertising revenues, TAR is expected to be broadly flat in the nine months to the end of September.

We are mindful of the macro economic uncertainty, however we have for the first time ever in Q4, the football World Cup to look forward to.“We are on track against all the new KPIs and targets we announced earlier this year as part of the second phase of our More Than TV Strategy and we are very focussed on successfully launching ITVX, our new free ad-funded streaming service, in Q4 this year.”More to come..