ITV earnings slide amid 'challenging' advertising market

Broadcaster ITV posted a drop in interim earnings on Thursday as it cited a "challenging" advertising market.

In the six months to 30 June, group adjusted earnings before interest and tax fell 52% to £152m, as expected. ITV said this reflects the challenging advertising market and the planned investment in video on-demand service ITVX.

Adjusted earnings per share were down 62% to 2.3p.

Total external revenue dipped 2% to £1.6bn, with growth in ITV Studios and digital revenues largely offsetting the decline in linear advertising revenues. Meanwhile, total ITV Studios revenue rose 8% to £1bn, driven by the UK.

Media & entertainment revenue fell 9% to £964m, with total advertising revenue down 11% as guided. Within this, digital advertising revenue was up 24% to £179m.

Chief executive Carolyn McCall said: "The continued momentum behind ITV's strategic transformation delivered strong growth in Studios and Digital revenues in the first half of the year, largely offsetting the expected weakness in the UK advertising market - with total revenue declining just 1% in H1, even in a very tough advertising market.

"We remain on track to achieve all our KPI targets which gives us confidence we will deliver at least £750m of digital revenue by 2026. As we said at the full year results in March, 2023 is the year of peak net investment in our streaming business and we expect profit to grow from here."