26th Feb 2014 08:11
LONDON (Alliance News) - ITV PLC announced a special dividend and raised its total dividend, as it reported a rise in pretax profit in 2013 and gave a bullish forecast for 2014.
The television broadcaster posted a total dividend of 3.5 pence for the year, up from 2.6 pence in the previous year. Additionally, ITV announced a special dividend of 4.0 pence, in line with the special dividend it paid in 2012.
ITV expressed confidence for 2014, saying it expects to see further growth across all parts of its businesses, and citing signs of improvement in the television advertising market.
The company said it expects to see growth in its ITV Studios division, driven by the acquisitions that it made in the UK and internationally during the year. ITV expects to see double-digit growth from its Online, Pay & Interactive revenue streams, helped by the launch of two new channels, ITV Encore and ITV Be.
ITV said the UK television advertising market continued to show signs of improvement. It said it expects to see its ITV Family net advertising revenue to show growth of 5% to 6% over the four months to the end of April, and it expects to outperform its estimate for the television advertising market over the full year.
ITV reported a pretax profit of GBP435 million, up from GBP334 million in the previous year, an increase of 30%.
On an adjusted basis, removing exceptional items including acquisition costs, impairment charges and amortisation costs, ITV posted pretax profit of GBP581 million, up from GBP457 million in the previous year.
Total revenues were up 9% to GBP2.40 billion from GBP2.20 billion in the previous year.
In the company's Broadcast & Online segment, revenue rose 3%, driven by 16% growth in Online, Pay & Interactive and 2% growth in ITV Family NAR as the television advertising market returned to growth.
ITV said the television advertising market had seen fluctuations across the year, mostly driven by the timing of sports events and programmes.
ITV Studios saw revenue growth of 20%, driven by both organic growth and acquisitions. The company completed four acquisitions in the UK and US in 2013, The Garden and Big Talk in the UK an Thinkfactory Media and High Noon Entertainment in the US. In February ITV acquired a 51% controlling interest in US producer DiGa Vision.
ITV's share of viewing was up 3%, and ITV Family share of viewing was up 4%, which the company attributed to an increase in the quality and variety of its programming schedule.
Shares in ITV were trading down 1.9% at 202.20 pence Wednesday morning shortly after market open.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; [email protected]; @HanaSSAllNews
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