Queer Eye For The Straight Guy & The Four Help Boost ITV Revenues
Netflixs Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Foxs The Four helped British commercial broadcaster ITV ..
Netflixs Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Foxs The Four helped British commercial broadcaster ITV bolster its revenues for the first three months of the year.
The company revealed that overall revenue across the firm was up 5% to £772M (US$1B), compared to £734M ($995M) last year. Revenue at production group ITV Studios, which produced the above series, grew 11% to £382M ($518M) to the end of March 2018, with organic revenues up 9%. The latter will particularly please the company, which has seen much of its production growth come from its swathe of acquisitions. This comes after Deadline revealed in April that it was potentially one of the suitors considering an acquisition of Endemol Shine Group.
Online revenue, helped by the steady growth of its on-demand platform ITV Hub, was up 41% and advertising numbers were up 3% in the first quarter with the soccer World Cup this summer expected to help overall advertising figures this year.
ITV CEO Carolyn McCall noted forthcoming series such as Britains Got Talent, the return of Love Island and period drama Vanity Fair, from the producers behind Victoria and Poldark, as highlights to come.
“We have a solid slate of new and returning programmes internationally for both broadcasters and OTT platforms with Unforgotten, The War of the Worlds, Snowpiercer, Good Witch, Suburra, The Voice, The Chase, Big Stars Little Star, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, The Four and Forged in Fire,” she added.
The former Easyjet boss is expected to give further details of the companys “strategic refresh” at its half-year results on July 25. She gave the first details of its move, which includes a plan to both compete with and work with the likes of Netflix and Amazon, in February.
“The strategic refresh is progressing well with great input and engagement from ITV people across the business. I look forward to sharing an update at our interim results in July,” she added.
