Carlton Communications has this morning unveiled first half financial results that beat market expectations, pushing shares in the group up by 7.2% to 119p by 10:00am this morning.
Earnings before interest and tax were up from £11.3 million in H1 2002 to £32.0 million this time. The group moved into a pre-tax profit of £37.0 million, up from a loss of £179.4 million last year. However, total group revenues were actually down slightly year on year, from £524.8 million to £508.5 million.
Advertising Net advertising revenues from ITV1 were flat in the first half at £334.0 million, although Carlton says that the effect of the war in Iraq was less severe than many had forecast. Granada, which also released stronger than expected results yesterday, saw its ITV1 revenues rise by 1.0% to £442 million in the period.
Carlton prefers instead to highlight its performance in terms of share of advertising. The group says that its share of total ITV advertising revenue was up by 1.2% points. However, included in this figure is the relatively fast-growing ITV2, which was not included in Granada’s ITV revenue numbers and so the two are not directly comparable.
The group expects its share of ITV revenues to decline by 1% points for the first nine months of the financial year. It did not comment further on specific growth or revenue figures.
Viewing In terms of viewing Carlton, like Granada, points to an increase to 5.2% in ITV1’s peak-time share lead over BBC1. ITV1 secured an average of 32.4% of all peak-time viewing during the first half, with better commercial impacts coming at a lower cost than had been forecast.
Nevertheless, ITV1’s share performance against BBC1 across the entire schedule (rather than just peak-time) is in decline.
An average of monthly share figures for Q1 2002 puts ITV1 at 25.0% against BBC1’s 25.2%, according to BARB data. For Q1 2003, BBC1 has increased its share to 26.5%, whilst ITV1 has fallen back to 24.0%.
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