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!

28 Jul Investec N/A Hold
28 Jul Numis 300.00 Add

29 Jul Nomura 285.00 Buy
29 Jul Deutsche Bank 220.00 Sell
29 Jul Barclays... 270.00 Equal weight
29 Jul JP Morgan... 312.00 Overweight

Short term target 281p

Billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Global Plc increased its stake in U.K. broadcaster ITV Plc to just under 10 percent.

London-based Liberty Global acquired 138.7 million ITV shares, taking its holding to 9.9 percent, it said in a statement Friday. No financial details are given. At market price, the additional stake has a value of about 380 million pounds ($593 million). Liberty Global said it has no plans to make a full takeover offer.

“This investment remains an opportunistic one for us in our largest market,” Liberty Global Chief Executive Officer Mike Fries said in the statement.

Liberty Global said it had entered into a hedging transaction at the same time over the ITV shares and obtained further financing from its hedge counterparty. The deal would “result in net cash being released to Liberty Global,” it said.

Sold @ 281

Did exactly the same alders but not all :0)

Could ITV become a bid target?
Virgin Media owner Liberty Gold has increased its stake in broadcaster ITV (ITV) as speculation about a government sale of Channel 4 mounts.

Liberum analyst Ian Whittaker reiterated his ‘buy’ recommendation and target price of 330p on the shares as the prospect of the government allowing retransmission fees – fees to public service broadcasters from the pay-TV operators who show their channels - grows. Shares in ITV fell 0.6% to 279p yesterday.

‘The Financial Times has raised the possibility the government may sell Channel 4,’ he said. ‘One way to increase sale proceeds significantly would be to allow Channel 4 to charge retransmission revenues for its main channel.

‘The implications of this may explain why Liberty Global has increased its stake in ITV now…For any acquirer looking to purchase ITV, the optimal point is to buy ITV when retransmission revenues are looking increasingly likely but are not yet reflected in the share price or estimates.

‘In this regard, Liberty Global’s increase in its ITV stake from 6.4% to 9.9%, at the very least, suggests it thinks a bidder may be more likely.’

hxxp://citywire.co.uk/money/the-expert-view-hsbc-bg-and-itv/a830697?ref=citywire-money-latest-news-list#i=4

an interesting thought ...... intrinsically, it's not the most exciting of stocks, though i made an adequate turn on it back in april

Liberum note:
"ITV (TOP PICK, 330P TARGET PRICE, BUY): ITV down today on the read-across from US media names that have got smashed in recent days on advertising fears plus a negative spin being put on some of the data from the annual Ofcom Communications Report released yesterday. This is a good buying opportunity and would highlight several reasons why the negative read-acrosses are overdone:
(1) US TV market very different from UK / Europe – channels show a lot more advertising (greater than 20 mins per hr) giving consumers a big incentive to switch off especially given the high cable fees;
(2) the US broadcasters have been awful at developing affiliate channels to capture fragmentation – the UK / European broadcasters, on the other hand, have been very good
(3) greater degree of channel fragmentation in the US – in the UK, greater than 60% of viewing on Sky is still of the 5 main channels;
(4) Ofcom data shows TV still very strong and changes are incremental not sharp drops – TV would be the most missed product if unavailable (37%); minutes watching TV per day in 2014 barely below 2009 (220 vs. 225 – important as suggests TV viewing declines from 2010 more cyclical than structural in drivers i.e. people spending less time in the home); time-shifting is genre based not out of a desire to avoid adverts and gradual increase is driven by more penetration of time-shifted devices not more time-shifting watched per consumer."

Knee jerk reaction, mostly profit taking. Good opportunity to add which I did.

Chris

That's what i thought , got stopped out at 272 , back in @263, after reading the broker and city pages over the weekend punter's will rush back in.

ITV (TOP PICK, 330P TARGET PRICE, BUY): ITV down today on the read-across from US media names that have got smashed in recent days on advertising fears plus a negative spin being put on some of the data from the annual Ofcom Communications Report released yesterday. This is a good buying opportunity and would highlight several reasons why the negative read-acrosses are overdone:

(1) US TV market very different from UK / Europe – channels show a lot more advertising (greater than 20 mins per hr) giving consumers a big incentive to switch off especially given the high cable fees;
(2) the US broadcasters have been awful at developing affiliate channels to capture fragmentation – the UK / European broadcasters, on the other hand, have been very good
(3) greater degree of channel fragmentation in the US – in the UK, greater than 60% of viewing on Sky is still of the 5 main channels;
(4) Ofcom data shows TV still very strong and changes are incremental not sharp drops – TV would be the most missed product if unavailable (37%); minutes watching TV per day in 2014 barely below 2009 (220 vs. 225 – important as suggests TV viewing declines from 2010 more cyclical than structural in drivers i.e. people spending less time in the home); time-shifting is genre based not out of a desire to avoid adverts and gradual increase is driven by more penetration of time-shifted devices not more time-shifting watched per consumer."

ITV to open higher tomorrow

Got that wrong

Talk that Time Warner might be looking at ITV and Sky
Financial Times‎ - 18 hours ago
ITV rallied after Time Warner's finance officer said the US media group was considering overseas acquisitions.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-08-14/why-apple-wants-a-live-tv-service

Did he mention ITV ?

In part because of its focus on self-made content, HBO’s operating margin of 35 per cent is four times that of Netflix. After accounting for the cash costs of acquiring external content, Netflix is merely cash flow break even. Time Warner has been an excellent builder. But sometimes the only way to get on to a nice street is to buy.

230p next support if slide continues.

got a stop loss at 231 , bought today @ 235