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Business of TV Sport
Sportel Monaco 2011

World Cup and IPL help drive ITV revival

UK commercial broadcaster ITV is to offer high-definition versions of its ITV2, 3 and 4 digital channels as pay-television services from October, the first step in a five-year strategy to reduce its dependence on advertising revenues. The move was announced yesterday as the broadcaster reported a significantly improved performance for the first six months of 2010, helped in part by strong audiences for sports events, including the Fifa World Cup and cricket’s Indian Premier League.
ITV also said the 21.3 million peak audience for its coverage of the England-Algeria match from the recent Fifa World Cup was the highest on any channel since Euro 2004. Audiences for last season’s Champions League and FA Cup however were down on the previous year “due to teams with lower levels of support making it through to the final stages”.

ITV said that cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL) and football’s Europa League had “performed well” for digital channel ITV4, with ITV’s online coverage of the IPL described as “a big success”. Coverage on ITV.com, which simulcast matches live with ITV4, drew over 350,000 unique users during March and April, driving 5.4 million page views and 850,000 video views.

The broadcaster reported an 8.6-per-cent rise in total revenues to £987 million (€1.18 billion/$1.57 billion) for the first six months of 2010, with net advertising revenues up 18.4 per cent to £728m. Total costs for flagship channel ITV1 rose £28 million to £476 million, largely because of the Fifa World Cup. The programme budget for ITV1 will be below £800 million in 2011 and in 2012. This will be a decrease on this year’s budget of £820 million – increased for the World Cup – but £50 million a year higher than previously planned.