Healthy profits despite fall in viewers at ITV

ITV has exclusive rights to the Rugby World Cup and the broadcaster will be hoping it gives a boost to audience figures in the autumn.

The group, which is home to shows including Downton Abbey and The X Factor, said its share of Britain’s television audience fell 4 per cent to 21.1 per cent after a number of prime time documentaries failed to live up to hopes.

But ITV delivered better-than-expected underlying pre-tax profits for the first half of the year, at £391m against £312m a year earlier.

The group’s profits haul comes as it benefits from a recovery in television advertising spending, with net ad revenues up 5 per cent to £838m in the first half.

This helped overall sales leap 11 per cent higher to £1.36bn.

Revenues at its production arm ITV Studios – which has been bolstered by a string of acquisitions such as Talpa Media, maker of BBC1’s The Voice – rose 23 per cent to £496m.

The group said viewing figures for its daytime schedule, including Good Morning Britain, improved in the first half, while it added Britain’s Got Talent was the highest rated entertainment series, with the final attracting the largest audience on any channel so far this year.

But this was not enough to shore up overall audience figures. ITV said: “While there were many successful programmes in the first half, our viewing performance was impacted by strong competition from the BBC, no major sporting event and some of our shows not performing as well as we had expected.”

Adam Crozier, chief executive of ITV, said turning around the group’s falling audience numbers remained a “key focus” for the year, but confirmed hopes for an improvement in the second half of 2015 when it has the exclusive rights to the Rugby World Cup, as well as a strong upcoming programme schedule.