Ulster Television (UTV) significantly outperformed the ITV Network during the calendar year, despite the period representing the ‘worst advertising downturn in living memory’, chairman John McGuckian will tell the company’s AGM today.
UTV ended the year on a record share of ITV advertising, according to the statement. In Q1 2002, ITV’s ad revenues were down 13%, compared to a fall of just 2% at UTV. “The second quarter, with the stimulus of the World Cup, is experiencing some improvement and it now seems likely that ITV, and UTV, will achieve a performance marginally ahead of the same quarter last year,” said McGuckian.
In accord with comments from a number of other media groups, McGuckian says that it is currently unclear whether this slight upturn in revenues will be sustained throughout the second half of the year. “There are some hopeful signs that ITV advertising revenue in July may be slightly up but beyond that, in a very short-term market, it would not yet be prudent to signal a possible upturn,” the statement says.
Radio UTV’s radio division, County Media, saw advertising down slightly in H1 2002. Here too, there is little visibility and the company is hoping that radio revenues will finish broadly flat for the full year.
