Paul Sandle

LONDON, (Reuters) – ITV (LON): Britain’s most prominent free-to air commercial broadcaster expects strong consumer demand to propel advertising revenue to an all-time high in the recovery economy, it stated on Wednesday.

According to the company that produced “Vigil”, Endeavour and “Love Island”, both broadcasting and production have recovered from the COVID-19 effects. In the nine months ending Sept. 30, revenue from both divisions was higher than in the previous year as well as in pre-pandemic 2019.

ITV posted an overall revenue of 2.38 Billion Pounds ($3.2 Billillion) for the nine month period ending Sept. 30, up 28% from last year.

Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive Officer described this performance as “outstanding”, nine months by any standard.

The shares of the company rose as high as 10% during early trade, to an all-time high of 121 pence (12 weeks)

Company said that it expected advertising revenue growth of 24% this year due to an optimistic market, the ability to deliver millions to its main channels, and targeted audiences via video on-demand.

McCall is focusing on improving McCall’s video-on–demand offering, which was not up to the standards of streaming experts like Netflix (NASDAQ:).

According to her, a redesign of the ITV hub led to a 22% rise in monthly active users (to 9.6 million) and 39% increase in advertising revenue.

Streaming services compete with ITV Studios for viewers’ attention. However, they are also buyers from productions made by ITV Studios.

According to the company, it anticipates strong revenue growth through streaming platforms. This is led by Netflix’s “Snowpiercer”.

ITV’s own channels had strong ratings for the European soccer championship finals and the dramas “Love Island”, “Manhunt: The Night Stalker”, and “Vera”. This helped the channels increase their British audience share to 22.5%, from 22.2%.

($1 = 0.7414 pounds)