ITV ratings fall, profits rise

UK commercial broadcaster ITV will focus on improving its audience viewing figures after admitting recent ratings were not as good as it would have liked.

In its latest interim management statement, the company said its external revenue for the nine months to the end of September rose 8% to £1.8bn (US$2.84bn).

Chief executive Adam Crozier said the free-to-air broadcaster has enjoyed its “best outperformance of the market for five years,” as ad revenues rose by 6%, and was confident of delivering double-digit profit growth this year.

But viewing figures for its bouquet of channels have fallen 5% so far in 2014, despite the presence of major primetime shows The X Factor and Downton Abbey, which suffered its lowest UK season finale ratings ever on Sunday with 8 million viewers.

“In 2015, we will focus on improving viewing share and we have a strong performance schedule, with new and returning drama including the second season of Broadchurch, as well as the Rugby World Cup,” said Crozier.

Meanwhile, ITV Studios’ (ITVS) revenues surged by 10% thanks largely to acquisitions. The company is also on course to achieve £15m of savings over the course of the year.

Online, pay and interactive again performed strongly, with revenue up 24% in the first nine months.

“We expect to grow at a similar rate over the full year, helped by new deals with pay platforms and strong demand for video-on-demand viewing, up 24%,” the statement read.

ITV launched new channels ITVBe and ITV Encore earlier this year, which saw its family of networks expand to seven, adding to ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CiTV.

The company has more recently been involved in a war of words with UK satcaster Sky, after the free-to-air broadcaster called for pay TV companies to pay retransmission fees to pubcasters, similar to the model in the US. However, today no statement was made concerning the issue.

Over in the US, ITV has also been involved in a union battle over minimum working conditions at its prodcos, which include Leftfield Entertainment, Gurney Productions, High Noon Entertainment, Thinkfactory Media and DiGa.

The battle recently intensified after the Writers Guild of America East (WGAE) called on ITV to reach an agreement over US network NBC’s forthcoming remake of its format Saturday Night Takeaway.

This week, ITV’s director of television wrote to producers with details of ITV’s Social Partnership – a third element that the broadcaster is introducing to its commissioning process.

Producers pitching shows will be expected to consider their impact on incisive programming; inclusive workforce; community and causes and environmental impact.