By Paul Sandle
LONDON, July 31 (Reuters) – ITV, the British broadcaster that has agreed to sell its channels and streaming platform to Comcast’s Sky, said the World Cup lifted first-half ad revenue but forecast declining sales in the third quarter as the boost from the tournament faded.
Chief Executive Carolyn McCall said more than 200 brands had advertised around the competition, including some new to TV.
She said some brands shifted spending into June and July to capitalise on the tournament’s buzz and audiences, though it was difficult to quantify how much had been simply brought forward.
ITV, which shared World Cup coverage with the BBC, drew a peak audience of more than 18 million for the England versus Norway match, one of three England games it showed exclusively.
ITV forecast a drop of around 5% in ad revenue for the third quarter despite July’s football boost.
McCall said with the shifts around the World Cup, a better measure was the nine months to end-September, which would be flat, outperforming the market. She added that it was too early to see what the important final quarter would bring.
ITV, which will be a standalone production business after the Sky deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2027, reported flat operating profit of £146 million ($196.2 million) for the first half, slightly below analyst expectations.
Profit at Studios fell 9%, partly due to scheduling changes to long-running soaps including “Coronation Street”.
It said revenue and profit in Studios would be weighted towards the second half, when it has a strong slate of shows such as “The Gentlemen” and “The Woods” for Netflix.
McCall said ITV was on track to deliver good revenue growth in Studios and strong, profitable digital revenue growth within its Media & Entertainment broadcast business for the full year.
($1 = 0.7440 pounds)
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; editing by Sarah Young and Ros Russell)
