UK's ITV half-year comes in ahead on advertising beat, shares rise

By Sarah Young

LONDON (Reuters) -British broadcaster ITV said its first-half performance beat forecasts, boosted by better-than-expected total advertising revenue, and strong content demand at its Studios business, pushing its shares higher.

ITV is Britain's biggest free-to-air commercial broadcaster, with two divisions, Media and Entertainment, which includes its broadcast channels and streaming service ITVX, while Studios makes content such as 'The Devil's Hour' for Amazon Prime Video, and 'Run Away' for Netflix.

Shares in ITV traded up 9% in early deals, hitting their highest for a year, after it said it was on track to meet targets, and had outperformed in a tough advertising market, given the comparison against the same period last year when the Men's Euros soccer tournament sent revenues soaring.

"We've been able to mitigate a softer market," CEO Carolyn McCall told reporters on Thursday.

ITV was also positive on the cost outlook, saying it had found an additional 15 million pounds ($20.4 million) of permanent non-content cost savings for this year, and added it would spend 1.23 billion pounds on content in total in 2025, lower than the 1.25 billion pounds previously guided.

ITV has for some time been the subject of takeover speculation. In April, reports said it could sell its Studios business or merge it with a rival.

"We won't comment on any of the speculation that has been going on for, I don't know, years," McCall said.

"This whole sector, everyone talks to everyone, and everyone is talking to everyone. And you know that the board will keep all options under review."

The group posted total advertising revenue (TAR) down 7% for the first six months, beating a consensus forecast for a fall of 8%.

At ITV Studios, where profits will be weighted to the second half due to the timing of high-margin sales such as Rivals season 2 for Disney+, the company said its outlook was unchanged after revenues grew 3% in the first-half.

($1=0.7371 pounds)

(Reporting by Sarah Young; Editing by James Davey and Clarence Fernandez)