ITV reports significant growth in revenue throughout all sectors

ITV, the commercial television network, has reported a 14% increase in total external revenue over the first quarter in 2015, bringing the total to £665m (2014: £585).

The network also saw a 10% increase in Broadcast & Online revenue, growing from £480m in 2014 to £530m.

Furthermore, the network’s production company, ITV Studios, has experienced significant growth as well, with total revenue rising 17% to £224m (2014: £192m) and a return to organic growth of 8%.

The success of popular network is only expected to continue throughout the year after ITV completed the acquisition of Talpa Media, which created ‘The Voice,’ in April.

In addition, ITV’S Net Advertising Revenues (NAR) has substantially increased by 12%, but this figure is expected to drop to 5% by the second quarter.

Adam Crozier, ITV chief executive, said: “We’ve had a strong start to the year with further growth across all parts of the business as we continue to deliver against our strategy.

ITV Studios returned to organic growth, which contributed around half of Studios revenue growth, while our acquired businesses remain on track.

We remain focused on building a global scripted business, with a number of high profile dramas this year including Thunderbirds Are Go, The Good Witch, Texas Rising, Aquarius, Raised by Wolves and Jekyll & Hyde. Looking forward to the rest of the year we have a healthy pipeline of new drama to come.

In April we completed the acquisition of Talpa Media, the creator of entertainment formats including The Voice, The Voice Kids, Utopia and Dating in the Dark, which marked an important step forward in our strategy of building a world class production and distribution business.

Our Broadcast business has made a very strong start to the year with NAR up 12% in Q1 and growth across all the major categories. Online, Pay & Interactive continues to grow strongly, helped by growth in online advertising and by our pay channel ITV Encore, which launched last June.

ITV Family Share of Viewing was down 3% in the first four months and improving SOV remains a key focus for the year. We are encouraged by a more robust recent performance including Britain’s Got Talent, Ninja Warrior, Vera and well received new drama including Safe House, Home Fires and Code of a Killer. Our digital channels are growing audience share, up 3% overall year on year, and we are firmly focused on the main channel where we expect to see improvement in the second half of the year when we will have the benefit of the exclusive rights to the Rugby World Cup.

Looking forward, ITV NAR is expected to be up around 5% in H1, and while quarterly phasing will be different to 2014, we expect to outperform the market over the full year with Online, Pay & Interactive continuing to grow strongly across the year. ITV Studios remains on track to increase revenue by around £100 million on a constant currency basis with the benefit of Talpa to come. For 2015 as a whole we anticipate further strong growth across ITV as we continue to rebalance and strengthen the business creatively, commercially and financially.“