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ITV PLC shares fell on Thursday after it reported an increase in half-year profit, though it cut revenue guidance in its Studios arm. Shares in the London-based television broadcaster and content producer were down 4.7% to 80.35 pence each in London on Thursday morning. Group revenue in the first-half of 2024 declined 3.1% to £1.90 billion from £1.96 billion a year prior. Pretax profit jumped to £330 million from £45 million. It booked a £194 million profit on the disposal of joint ventures and subsidiary undertakings. ITV maintained its interim dividend of 1.7p per share. Chief Executive Carolyn McCall said: ‘Our digital advertising business continues to go from strength-to-strength and we saw a 17% increase in digital advertising revenue in the period, which contributed to the 10% increase in total advertising revenue. This was driven by strong viewing across our broadcast channels and ITVX, with a very successful Euros, a year-on year-increase in viewing of Love Island and a slate of great dramas.’ Looking ahead, the firm now expects revenue for the ITV Studios production arm to ‘be down low single digits’ for the full-year. It had previously expected it to be ‘broadly flat’. ITV explained that the downgrade is due to a ‘small number of key productions being contracted as executive productions rather than co-productions’. ‘The change in contractual arrangement has no impact on profit but does mean we recognise less revenue this year. There remain a small number of contracts under negotiation, which may have a similar out-turn of lower recognised revenue, but the same profit if they are contracted as executive productions. In the revenue guidance for 2024, we have assumed that we will be the main or co-producer,’ the firm said. It added that ITV Studios remains on track to deliver total organic revenue growth of 5% on average per annum from 2021 to 2026, and at a margin of 13% to 15%. Copyright 2024 Alliance News Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
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