Advertisers start returning to ITV following brutal lockdown period
ADVERTISERS ARE slowly returning to ITV as it restarts production on most of its shows and expects to pour nearly £1bn into its programming this year.
Dame Carolyn McCall, ITV’s chief executive, said the firm behind Coronation Street and Love Island is now seeing an upward trajectory and revealed that more people than hoped had signed up to its BritBox service.
Production has restarted, or been completed, on around 70 per cent of shows that were paused when the UK went into lockdown. The broadcaster will plough around £960m into its programming this year.
However, even as people were sat at home, sometimes with little else to do other than watch television, ITV took a massive hit.
The broadcaster said that pretax profit fell 93 per cent to £15m in the first half of the financial year, on revenue of £1.45bn.
Dame Carolyn said: “This has been one of the most challenging times in the history of ITV.
“While our two main sources of revenue – production and advertising – were down significantly in the first half of the year and the outlook remains uncertain, today we are seeing an upward trajectory with productions restarting and advertisers returning to take advantage of our highly effective mass reach and addressable advertising platform, in a brandsafe environment.”
Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: “Enforced lockdown from the pandemic was a golden opportunity for broadcasters given a largely captive audience, but to a large degree this has not filtered through to ITV.”
He said that with the company’s share price in the doldrums, speculation is resurfacing over a takeover bid.
Mr Hunter added: “ITV’s reliance on traditional advertising revenue is something of a thorn in its side.
“Companies understandably pulled back from advertising goods that they could not sell and, in any event, given the fact that costs became a priority, the advertising budget is often the first to give way.”
This has been one of the most challenging times in the history of ITV. Dame Carolyn McCall, chief executive of ITV