ITV looks set to suffer a £190 million deficit in its advertising income resulting from a poor performance from ITV1, with media agency Starcom forecasting the broadcasters share of the television advertising market to fall by 5.5 percentage points in 2006.
Despite ITV’s expected fall, Starcom estimates the TV ad market for 2006 to be up by 3.5% year on year, reaching £3.63 billion, with Channel 4 benefiting most from ITV’s downfall due to a strong performance over the year boosted by the launch of More4 and E4 going free-to-air.
This opinion is confirmed by ZenithOptimedia forecasting ITV’s advertising revenues to be down by 4.8% this year, pushing the broadcaster’s total down to £1.59 billion. The downturn is expected to continue into next year, with a further decline to £1.53 billion expected (see ITV Revenues Forecast To Drop By 5% In 2005).
ZenithOptimedia is more optimistic then Starcom, predicting television adspend to grow by 4.3% year on year in 2006 and between 4% and 5% from 2007 to 2010.
ITV’s outlook is not all doom and gloom, however, with 2006’s football World Cup offering the potential for stimulated growth. ZenithOptimedia’s forecasts take this into account, but the agency claims that without an upturn in the retail habits of British shoppers, this will create only moderate benefits for ITV.
In ITV’s annual company meeting, the broadcaster revealed that its viewing share for its family of channels has continued to grow over the last six months, with digital terrestrial television enjoying the greatest growth, rising by 1.9% share points and accounting for 27.8% of all viewing over that period.
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