eOne says it will exceed market expectations in 2011

UK-listed production and distribution group Entertainment One (eOne) says shows including The Walking Dead and Peppa Pig have helped it increase like-for-like TV revenues by 87% in the nine months to end-2010.

In an interim management statement, the company said it expects to beat market expectations with its next results.

eOne did not report revenue figures, but said that its kids business is faring well with animated series Peppa Pig generating £200 million in retail sales last year. The animated preschool series has just started airing on Nick Jr. in the US and in the UK a Peppa Pig theme park is about to open.

In TV, sales of The Walking Dead and new series of Call Me Fitz and Rookie Blue spurred results.

At its last results presentation the company said it expects to book overall revenues of £475 million this year and EBIDTA profit of 39.4 million. At that point it also said it had £20 million of ‘sales not yet recognised’ relating to TV productions in progress.