Sharewatch: Strong Results Fail To Boost ITV

Strong interim results published by terrestrial television giant ITV yesterday failed to lift the broadcaster’s share price into positive growth, with stock dipping by 2.86% to close at 102p.

The broadcaster announced that pre-tax profits had by 59% to £132 million in the first half of the year following an improvement in advertising revenue, which grew by 4% during the same period. However, the company’s largest success came from its news division and digital channel, ITV2, which saw advertising revenues jump 68% from January to June 2004 (see Improved Advertising Revenue Drives ITV Profits Up 59%).

SMG saw a similarly dismal day’s trading as it unveiled interim results, losing 5.47% from its share price to close at 95p. The company announced a turnaround in its fortunes yesterday, as pre-tax profits grew by 20% to £5.5 million during the first half of the year (see Television Helps Boosts Fortunes At SMG).

Global advertising group WPP also suffered yesterday, losing 1.55% to close at 509p as investors worried that the group would get caught up in a bidding war for US advertising giant, Grey Global, as news broke that French firm Havas has secured funding for a bid .

The FTSE 100 slipped further yesterday, losing 0.5% to close at 4,538.0, while the FTSE 250 was 0.2% weaker at 6,222.3, despite a strong trading volume of 3.4 billion shares.

The closing prices of media company shares on Thursday were: