ITV reports Q1 revenue rise thanks to Studios, Media & Entertainment divisions

UK commercial broadcaster ITV experienced growth in total revenue of 17% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022, thanks to revenue increases at its ITV Studios and Media & Entertainment divisions.

Carolyn McCall

Total revenue in the three months to March 31 rose to £1bn (US$1.23bn) from £856m in the same period in 2021, as ITV Studios revenue increased by 23% to £458m and Media & Entertainment revenue grew by 13% to £545m.

Total advertising revenue rose by 16% year-on-year, while digital revenue was up by 24%.

Looking ahead to the rest of the year, ITV warned that advertising comparatives get “much tougher” in the second and third quarters compared with last year, which was boosted by the UEFA Euro 2020 football championship.

As a result, Q2 total advertising revenue is expected to decrease by around 6% versus the second quarter of 2021 when it was up 89% year-on-year. Total advertising revenue for the first half of 2022 will be up by around 5% year-on-year, however.

ITV CEO Carolyn McCall said: “We are focused on the three core drivers of value for ITV. We are growing Studios with a strong quarter and an exciting pipeline of scripted and unscripted programmes as we further diversify the business by genre, by geography and by customer and grow ahead of the market.

“In Media & Entertainment, we maintained the strength of our linear business where we secured 93% of the largest commercial audiences. And we are making good progress in our goal to supercharge streaming by increasing our hours of content by 50% in the quarter to 6,000 hours and making available the majority of scripted programmes in full for streaming at the same time as the initial broadcast.

“All of this provides a solid foundation for ITVX – our free, ad-funded streaming service – which is on track for launch in Q4, and we remain confident that we will deliver at least £750m of digital revenue by 2026.”