ITV must now be a bargain. The current team clearly are an issue but you'd think the big American companies would recognise the bargain.

The yield is also high and can be reinvested. That really does limit the down side. You can even win here if it drops further!

By Christopher Williams

8:15PM GMT 16 Nov 2013

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ITV is favourite to take the spoils in a battle with the BBC for rights to highlights of the European Champions League.


The terrestrial broadcasters are in the final stages of the competition for the secondary rights, after BT’s defeat of ITV and BSkyB in the auction of live European rights.


Insiders said a decision on the highlights Champions League package was expected in the next few days and that ITV was close to prevailing.


Just as the live rights attracted a record £900m fee, it is predicted UEFA will extract a higher price than before for highlights, particularly as BT has said it will broadcast only one live match free-to-air per season.


ITV’s defeat means that from 2015 it will have live rights only to some FA Cup matches and some England internationals.



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Champions League highlights are now understood to be the priority for the broadcaster. Its strategy of increasing the proportion of its revenues that come from selling its own rights means the company is less dependent on the boost in advertising sales that a big sporting occasion can bring.

The present live deal costs ITV £55m per year, and that money can be invested elsewhere from 2015.

The rights battle with the BBC is reaching its climax as ITV prepares to update shareholders this week on the progress of chief executive Adam Crozier’s turnaround effort as it reports third-quarter results.

The shares have more than trebled in value in the past three years as the company has benefited from the economic recovery and investors have applauded the growth of its content rights business.

Although the volatile advertising market still contributes the largest proportion of group revenues, analysts expect ITV’s resurgence to continue, in spite of the loss of the prized live football rights.

Roddy Davidson, of Westhouse, said: “We do not believe the recently announced loss of Champions League rights from 2015 onwards significantly dents this positive investment case.

“We are bulls of ITV, based on this positive backdrop, the increasing breadth of its content portfolio, the quality and consistency of its management team and strategy, and its compelling cash-flow characteristics.”

Liberum Capital suggested ITV could also soon benefit from up to £100m a year from BSkyB and Virgin Media and other pay-TV operators who carry its channels. Under rules dating back to the foundation of the cable and satellite industries, ITV pays the operators for carrying its channels, but it is lobbying –with BBC support – to reverse such transaction fees.

Observers and insiders expect ITV to win the highlights package, in part because of the complications for lucrative sponsorship deals that would be involved in a BBC victory.

The Champions League has seven main sponsors, who currently include MasterCard, Heineken and Gazprom, and these are promoted as part of advertising breaks on commercial television.

Both BBC and ITV representatives declined to comment on their negotiations with UEFA officials.














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Interim Management Statement

ITV plc Interim Management Statement - 9 months to 30 September 2013
ITV strategy delivers continued growth

· Total external revenues up 6% to £1,664m (2012: £1,573m)
· Non-NAR revenues up 11% at £810m (2012: £730m)
· Broadcast & Online revenues up 3% driven by 1% growth in NAR and 17% growth in Online, Pay & Interactive
· Good on-screen performance with ITV Family SOV up 4%
· ITV Studios revenues up 11%, with a strong Q4 to come
· Total cost savings of around £25m in 2013 - £5m ahead of original target
· Expect ITV Family NAR to be up around 2% over the full year

Nomura has reiterated its 'buy' rating for terrestrial broadcaster ITV on the back of this week's solid trading update from the company combined with continuing advertising momentum.

"ITV trades at a 2014 price-to-earnings ratio of 14.6x, which is a 8% discount to ProSieben while ITV’s current multiple remains 6% below its median through the cycle 2005-09 level and 35% below its peak 2007 multiple. With ITV benefiting from its leveraged position on UK macro/advertising improvement, we remain 'buyers'," Nomura added.

ITV retains rights to European highlights http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/25058618

STV Group plc < 3%

Fingers crossed 200p stays breached.

Full year results 26th Feb.

HSBC Overweight 204.50 202.80 150.00 230.00 Upgrades

230 my target, even-tu-ally :O)

Steady as she goes on a down day,. breakout imminent alert ?

Preliminary Results

ITV delivers another year of strong growth - full year results for the year ended 31 December 2013

Strong revenue growth driven by Non-NAR

· Total external revenues up 9% to £2,389m (2012: £2,196m)
· Non-NAR revenues up £175m to £1,211m as we continue to rebalance
· Broadcast & Online revenues up 3% driven by 16% growth in Online, Pay & Interactive and 2% growth in NAR
· ITV Studios revenues up 20% with good organic growth and acquisitions coming through as planned

Double digit profit growth for the 4th year in a row

· EBITA before exceptional items up £107m or 21% to £620m
- Broadcast & Online EBITA up 20% at £487m
- ITV Studios EBITA up 24% at £133m
· Adjusted PBT up 27% at £581m
· Adjusted EPS up 23% at 11.2p
· Basic EPS up 26% at 8.3p

Investing in content is driving progress across ITV

· Best year on year on-screen performance for 10 years with ITV main channel up 3% and ITV Family SOV up 4%
· Long form video requests up 16% driven by mobile and tablets
· ITV Studios completed four acquisitions in UK and the US

Focus remains on cash and costs

· Delivered £28m of cost savings in 2013 and targeting a further £10m in 2014
· Profit to cash conversion remains strong at 97%
· Net cash of £164m
· Continued to improve efficiency of the balance sheet through debt buybacks and redemption of the convertible bond

Delivering increased shareholder returns

· The Board has proposed an ordinary dividend of 2.4p to give a full year dividend of 3.5p up 35% and a special dividend of 4.0p in line with last year

Strong 2013 creates a solid platform for 2014

· ITV Family NAR expected to be up 5% to 6% in the 4 months to end April 2014
· Online, Pay & Interactive should again deliver double digit growth in 2014 helped by the launch of ITV Encore
· Expect good growth in ITV Studios and we will continue to look at potential acquisitions

Broadcaster ITV reports full-year double digit profit growth

StockMarketWire.com

Broadcaster ITV said today it delivered strong growth in the full year to end-December, with revenue growth driven by Non-NAR. Total external revenues were up 9% to £2.389bn and Non-NAR revenues up £175m to £1.211bn.

Broadcast & Online revenues were up 3% driven by 16% growth in Online, Pay & Interactive and 2% growth in NAR.

ITV Studios revenues was up 20% with good organic growth and acquisitions coming through as planned.

Double digit profit growth for the 4th year in a row

· EBITA before exceptional items up £107m or 21% to £620m

- Broadcast & Online EBITA up 20% at £487m

- ITV Studios EBITA up 24% at £133m

· Adjusted PBT up 27% at £581m

· Adjusted EPS up 23% at 11.2p

· Basic EPS up 26% at 8.3p

Investing in content is driving progress across ITV

· Best year on year on-screen performance for 10 years with ITV main channel up 3% and ITV Family SOV up 4%

· Long form video requests up 16% driven by mobile and tablets

· ITV Studios completed four acquisitions in UK and the US

Focus remains on cash and costs

· Delivered £28m of cost savings in 2013 and targeting a further £10m in 2014

· Profit to cash conversion remains strong at 97%

· Net cash of £164m

· Continued to improve efficiency of the balance sheet through debt buybacks and redemption of the convertible bond

Delivering increased shareholder returns

· The Board has proposed an ordinary dividend of 2.4p to give a full year dividend of 3.5p up 35% and a special dividend of 4.0p in line with last year

Strong 2013 creates a solid platform for 2014

· ITV Family NAR expected to be up 5% to 6% in the 4 months to end April 2014

· Online, Pay & Interactive should again deliver double digit growth in 2014 helped by the launch of ITV Encore

· Expect good growth in ITV Studios and we will continue to look at potential acquisitions

Adam Crozier, CEO, said: 'ITV has taken another significant step forward with 9% revenue growth and for the fourth year in a row we delivered double digit profit growth. All parts of the business are progressing well as we continue to rebalance ITV. Total non-advertising revenues again grew strongly up £175m driven by good performances in ITV Studios and Online, Pay & Interactive.

'The investment we have made in content has driven significant revenue and profit growth in ITV Studios - up 20% and 24% respectively - both organically and through the selective acquisitions we have made in the UK and the US.

'Broadcast & Online performed well. We delivered further strong growth in Online, Pay & Interactive up 16% as we again improved the quality and availability of ITV Player and ITV Family NAR was up 2% as the TV advertising market returned to growth.

'Onscreen we've had our best year on year performance for ten years with share of viewing for ITV Family up 4% driven by our continued investment in our high quality schedules.

'We remain focused on cash and costs. We delivered £28m of cost savings, our group margin has increased by three percentage points and our profit to cash conversion remains high. The strength of our underlying cash flow means that, even after significant investment across the business and increasing returns to our shareholders, we ended the year with £164m of net cash, a similar level to 2012.

'The Board is proposing a final dividend of 2.4p to give a full year dividend of 3.5p, up 35% and a special dividend of 4.0p (£161m) in line with last year. This reflects the board's confidence in the ongoing growth and cash generation of the business and balances the need to invest in the business for future growth with increasing returns to shareholders.

'ITV is now demonstrably a much stronger company both operationally and financially. Over the last four years we've grown our revenues and delivered double digit profit growth every year, our adjusted earnings per share has increased six fold to 11.2p and our cash conversion has been consistently strong. While we've made good progress to date there is still much to do. We remain committed to our strategy for rebalancing the business, with growth increasingly coming from Online, Pay & Interactive and from ITV Studios internationally.

'In 2014 we again expect all parts of the business to see further growth. In ITV Studios we anticipate good growth, primarily driven by the acquisitions we have made in the UK and internationally. In Broadcast we have started the year with the announcement of two new channels - ITV Encore and ITVBe - and we expect to see double digit growth from Online, Pay & Interactive. The television advertising market continues to show signs of improvement, with ITV Family NAR expected to be up 5% to 6% over the four months to the end of April, and we expect to outperform our estimate of the television advertising market over the full year.'



Story provided by StockMarketWire.com

Ex-divi wed 30th Apr (2.4p + 4p)

UBS note today:
"ITV has acquired Leftfield Entertainment, a long-term target and in line with the strategy of US expansion and acquiring scalable assets to take it to the position of the largest unscripted independent producer in the US. Leftfield has been acquired from its founder and CEO Brent Montgomery for an initial cash payment of $360m for 80% of Leftfield, with further potential payments dependent upon Leftfield's continued delivery of significant profit growth. In 2013, it delivered $38m EBITDA on a pro-forma basis (assuming FY of Sirens), implying just over 12x EBITDA on initial payment. This should have a low to mid-single digit positive impact on ITV consensus EPS for 2015E and leave ITV net debt in H114E.
ITV expects Leftfield to deliver strong growth at a high margin from 2014 onwards, likely at the level of the group and higher than the overall production business, driven by its acquisition of Sirens and new JVs coming through. There are put and call options in place to buy the remaining 20% of Leftfield (call three years, put and call at the end of year five). The total maximum consideration for 100% of Leftfield is $800m; however, this would only be locked in if Leftfield delivers average EBITDA of at least $130m pa between years three and five.
Leftfield is an independent producer of mainly reality programmes with main successes including Pawn Stars (largest show on History Channel), Counting Cars, American Restoration & Real Housewives of New Jersey. Proforma numbers mentioned incorporate Sirens Media, which Leftfield acquired last year, and the impact on earnings includes two joint ventures with Loud Television and Outpost Entertainment. Together these businesses produce more than 300 hours of unscripted programming for over 30 US networks.
ITV is trading on 13x forward EPS vs. the subsector on 14x and we would expect this move to be taken positively. Our PT is DCF derived."

Interim 15th May

A UK Company buying into the US? food for thought so another fence sitting exercise for me for now on this one.

Added (again) @ 188.0 he who dares Stan :O)

Interim Management Statement

ITV growth strategy remains on track

ITV has published the following interim management statement in advance of the Company's Annual General Meeting to be held at 11 a.m. today.

· Total external revenues up 2% to £585m (2013: £571m)
· Broadcast & Online revenues up 3% at £480m (2013: £465m) driven by 2% growth in NAR as expected and 14% increase in Online, Pay & Interactive
· ITV Studios set to deliver good revenue growth over the full year, although the phasing of programme delivery in 2014 means Q1 is down 4%
· Completed the acquisition of 80% of Leftfield, the fast growing US independent producer, as we continue to build our international content business
· On track to deliver £10m cost savings over the full year
· ITV Family NAR is forecast to be ahead of the market, up 7% over H1, with initial indications that July will be positive

Brokers seem to be generally underwhelmed by the figures, but expect a sizeable increase in advertising revenue from the World Cup. Lets hope England go through a few of the stages, otherwise...............