ITV’s online arm drives channel growth

ITV’s full year results for 2013 reveal a strong year for the broadcaster, with broadcast and online revenues up 3%, driven primarily by 16% growth in online, pay and interactive.

With total external revenues reaching £2.39 million, the broadcaster saw studio revenues increase 20% year on year, with good organic growth and acquisitions coming through as planned.

Achieving double digit profit growth for the fourth year in a row, ITV has said that investment in content has largely driven growth across the channel, with ITV’s main channel up 3% and long-form video requests up 16% as a result of mobile and tablets.

ITV expects a strong start to 2014, predicting online, pay and interactive to again deliver double digit growth, helped by the launch of ITV Encore – the broadcaster’s first new channel in eight years.

ITV will also be expanding its free-to-air offering with the launch of ITVBe – a lifestyle and reality channel aimed at a younger, female audience.

Commenting on the results, Adam Crozier, ITV’s chief executive said: “ITV is now demonstrably a much stronger company both operationally and financially. Over the last four years we’ve grown our revenues and delivered double digit profit growth every year.

“While we’ve made good progress to date there is still much to do. We remain committed to our strategy for rebalancing the business, with growth increasingly coming from online, pay and interactive and from ITV Studios internationally.”