ITV profit takes hit from drop in advertising revenue but viewers grow

(Alliance News) - ITV PLC on Tuesday reported a sharp drop in profit in 2020, as the media ...

Alliance News 9 March, 2021 | 9:51AM
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(Alliance News) - ITV PLC on Tuesday reported a sharp drop in profit in 2020, as the media company's advertising revenue took a hit despite a rise in total viewing hours.

"Despite the disruption, and our focus on conserving cash, we have protected our investment and are making good progress in executing our strategy," Chief Executive Carolyn McCall said.

ITV said its financial performance was ahead of internal expectations driven by a strong end to the fourth quarter and our firm control over costs.

For 2020, pretax profit plunged 39% to GBP325 million from GBP530 million. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization dropped 19% to GBP561 million from GBP693 million.

Total revenue shrank by 16% to GBP3.26 billion from GBP3.89 billion, as ITV Studios revenue fell 25% to GBP1.37 billion from GBP1.82 billion. Advertising revenue fell 11% to GBP1.58 billion from GBP1.77 billion.

Total external revenue declined 16% to GBP2.78 billion from GBP3.31 billion.

ITV opted against any shareholder distributions in 2020, but said it recognises the importance of its dividend to investors and intends to restore dividend payments as soon as circumstances permit.

"The board will balance shareholder returns with our commitment to maintain investment grade metrics over the medium term, to continue to invest behind the strategy and with the ongoing uncertainty with Covid-19," ITV said.

ITV's total viewing hours improved 1% in 2020 to 16.6 billion hours from 16.3 billion hours. Long form online viewing hours, however, slipped 5% to 482 million from 506 million.

"Long form online viewing is the total number of hours ITV video on demand content is viewed on owned and operated ad funded platforms, and Hub+ viewing on owned and operated platforms, based on data from Crocus," ITV explained.

ITV Hub registered user accounts ended 2020 at 32.6 million, up 6% from 30.8 million at the end of 2019.

Looking ahead, ITV said it is seeing an improvement in advertising market trends. Total advertising revenue is expected to be up by around 8% in March and is expected to be up by between 60% and 75% in April. ITV noted the majority of its programmes are now back in production.

"Good progress has been made in delivering our strategic priorities with the rollout of our programmatic addressable advertising platform, Planet V, to agencies to a very positive response; the acceleration of the transformation of the ITV Hub; BritBox UK is ahead of plan hitting half a million subscriptions in January 2021; and BritBox US increased its subscriptions by 50% over the year - we now have over 2.6 million subscriptions globally across all our SVOD services," CEO McCall said.

"We are encouraged by the roadmap out of lockdown. However, there remains uncertainty in all markets around the world with the potential risk of lockdowns, which if they materialise will affect revenues. We are committed to taking further cost out of the business while further investing to accelerate the delivery of our strategy and digital transformation. We have restructured the Broadcast business to create the Media & Entertainment Division to better respond to changing viewing habits. ITV Studios is well positioned to take advantage of the continued strong growth in the demand for quality content internationally," McCall added.

Shares in ITV were 2.5% lower in London on Tuesday morning at 118.49 pence each.

By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com

Copyright 2021 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.

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Security Name Price Change (%) Morningstar
Rating
ITV PLC 70.30 GBX -0.63 -

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