ITV, Britain's top commercial television broadcaster, said today its full-year normalised pre tax profit rose 36 per cent to £452 million (€660 million), even as advertising declined at its flagship ITV1 channel.
Revenues for 2005 climbed 6 per cent to £2.18 billion (43.18 billion). ITV1 ad revenues fell 3.3 per cent to but growth at ITV2 and ITV3 along with the consolidation of GMTV pushed total advertising revenues up 2.7 per cent.
The company, home to Coronation Streetand The X Factor, warned that total ad revenues were expected to decline about 10 per cent in the first quarter. In 2006 both Easter and the Football World Cup fall in the second quarter and will move money into that period," it said in a statement.
However, consumer products group Unilever, Britain's top advertiser, has signed a deal to spend more than £200 million in advertising over four years on ITV channels, the companies said.
The company also announced plans to repurchase £300 million worth of shares, and raised its final dividend 38 per cent to 1.8 pence.