Sharewatch: ITV Rises Despite Fears Of Revenue Short-Fall

Britain’s largest commercial broadcaster, ITV, saw positive growth yesterday, rising by 2.24% to close at 102˝p. However, the company has recently been forced to drop several high-profile shows from its prime-time positions in order to avoid further declines in its viewing share.

The last few months have seen ITV become ruthless in axing peak-time programmes that under-perform after the Competition Commission ruled that it must pay compensation to advertisers if it fails to maintain its audience share at last year’s level (see ITV Drops Peak-Time Shows To Avoid Viewing Slump).

Elsewhere, Future Publishing remained unchanged at 59˝p as the company announced its first foray into the highly competitive hair and beauty sector with the launch of a new monthly title targeting well groomed consumers (see Future Grooms New Hair And Beauty Title For Success).

Satellite giant BSkyB saw a dip of 1.36% as the company continued to unnerve investors over its legal action against American IT firm, EDS. The broadcaster is suing the computer firm, claiming that it breached a contract to design and create new IT facilities to handle Sky’s customer services department.

The FTSE 100 closed up 0.2% yesterday at 4,362.6 while the FTSE 250 was more successful, rising by 0.7% to close at 5,956.3.

The closing prices of media company shares on Wednesday were: