ITV Advertising Forecasts From Merrill Lynch

ITV’s advertising trading has recovered slightly in March, with the figures coming in better than expected, according to analysts at Merrill Lynch. It looks like revenues will decline by 6% to 7%, against the broker’s previous -10% estimate.

Whilst this is slightly better than anticipated, a protracted war with Iraq is unlikely to do ITV any favours. Accordingly, Merrill is leaving its forecasts of -1.8% growth in the financial year to September and -2.0% in the calendar year to December both unchanged.

The overall television market is expected to be up by 2.0% in the year to December.

Moving into April, Merrill expects trading to become stronger, mainly thanks to the Easter weekend, which should push figures up by 5% year on year (Easter fell at the end of March last year). Conversely, May and June are forecast to be down by around 7% due to tough comparisons with last year’s World Cup coverage.

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