It’s been two years exactly since Carolyn McCall, chief executive of ITV, sent the share price crashing by 27% in a day as she announced a plan to ramp up the broadcaster’s adventures in streaming by launching ITVX. The City saw a large investment bill in the offing, plus definitive proof that the days of easy advertising money from old-style linear television were over, and tuned out. The share price has never seen 100p again and was 56p as recently as last month.
But here – finally – comes a hint of better times. The evidence was not the headline numbers from Thursday’s full-year report on 2023, which showed a fall in statutory pre-tax profits of almost two-thirds to £193m and a thumping 15% decline in those linear ad revenues. Rather, it was evidence that the shift towards streaming, which was plainly necessary in the age of Netflix and Disney+, will deliver what it is supposed to do and will cost no more than originally promised.
