Titanic and Prime Suspect sales give ITV a boost

ITV will outperform the wider TV advertising market in 2011, but remains cautious on its prospects for next year, the UK commercial broadcaster said in an interim management statement.

ITV Studios, ITV’s programming and distribution business, performed well in the first nine months of 2011, recording a 9% increase in sales of £224 million.

“The new ITV Studios management team is delivering ahead of expectations, fuelled by our continued investment in revitalising the creative pipeline, with particularly strong growth in our international business,” Adam Crozier, ITV CEO said.

He added: “So far this year ITVS has had 89 new commissions of which 40 are international including Prime Suspect which we have sold to 30 countries and Titanic, a major new drama for 2012 by Julian Fellowes, which has been sold to 57 countries.

The broadcaster said that overall revenues increased 4% year-on-year in the nine months to end-September, taking the total to £1.5 billion. Expressing caution about 2012, ITV noted that ad revenue trends will follow a different pattern to 2011 with tough comparatives continuing into the first quarter before easing from the second quarter onwards, helped by the Euro 2012 soccer tournament.