ITV delivers another year of strong growth - full year results for the year ended 31 December 2013
Strong revenue growth driven by Non-NAR
Total external revenues up 9% to £2,389m (2012: £2,196m)
Non-NAR revenues up £175m to £1,211m as we continue to rebalance
Broadcast & Online revenues up 3% driven by 16% growth in Online, Pay & Interactive and 2% growth in NAR
ITV Studios revenues up 20% with good organic growth and acquisitions coming through as planned
Double digit profit growth for the 4th year in a row
EBITA before exceptional items up £107m or 21% to £620m
- Broadcast & Online EBITA up 20% at £487m
- ITV Studios EBITA up 24% at £133m
Adjusted PBT up 27% at £581m
Adjusted EPS up 23% at 11.2p
Basic EPS up 26% at 8.3p
Investing in content is driving progress across ITV
Best year on year on-screen performance for 10 years with ITV main channel up 3% and ITV Family SOV up 4%
Long form video requests up 16% driven by mobile and tablets
ITV Studios completed four acquisitions in UK and the US
Focus remains on cash and costs
Delivered £28m of cost savings in 2013 and targeting a further £10m in 2014
Profit to cash conversion remains strong at 97%
Net cash of £164m
Continued to improve efficiency of the balance sheet through debt buybacks and redemption of the convertible bond
Delivering increased shareholder returns
The Board has proposed an ordinary dividend of 2.4p to give a full year dividend of 3.5p up 35% and a special dividend of 4.0p in line with last year
Strong 2013 creates a solid platform for 2014
ITV Family NAR expected to be up 5% to 6% in the 4 months to end April 2014
Online, Pay & Interactive should again deliver double digit growth in 2014 helped by the launch of ITV Encore
Expect good growth in ITV Studios and we will continue to look at potential acquisitions
Adam Crozier, ITV plc Chief Executive, said:
ITV has taken another significant step forward with 9% revenue growth and for the fourth year in a row we delivered double digit profit growth. All parts of the business are progressing well as we continue to rebalance ITV. Total non-advertising revenues again grew strongly up £175m driven by good performances in ITV Studios and Online, Pay & Interactive.
The investment we have made in content has driven significant revenue and profit growth in ITV Studios - up 20% and 24% respectively - both organically and through the selective acquisitions we have made in the UK and the US.
Broadcast & Online performed well. We delivered further strong growth in Online, Pay & Interactive up 16% as we again improved the quality and availability of ITV Player and ITV Family NAR was up 2% as the TV advertising market returned to growth.
Onscreen we've had our best year on year performance for ten years with share of viewing for ITV Family up 4% driven by our continued investment in our high quality schedules.
We remain focused on cash and costs. We delivered £28m of cost savings, our group margin has increased by three percentage points and our profit to cash conversion remains high. The strength of our underlying cash flow means that, even after significant investment across the business and increasing returns to our shareholders, we ended the year with £164m of net cash, a similar level to 2012.
The Board is proposing a final dividend of 2.4p to give a full year dividend of 3.5p, up 35% and a special dividend of 4.0p (£161m) in line with last year. This reflects the board's confidence in the ongoing growth and cash generation of the business and balances the need to invest in the business for future growth with increasing returns to shareholders.
ITV is now demonstrably a much stronger company both operationally and financially. Over the last four years we've grown our revenues and delivered double digit profit growth every year, our adjusted earnings per share has increased six fold to 11.2p and our cash conversion has been consistently strong. While we've made good progress to date there is still much to do. We remain committed to our strategy for rebalancing the business, with growth increasingly coming from Online, Pay & Interactive and from ITV Studios internationally.
In 2014 we again expect all parts of the business to see further growth. In ITV Studios we anticipate good growth, primarily driven by the acquisitions we have made in the UK and internationally. In Broadcast we have started the year with the announcement of two new channels - ITV Encore and ITVBe - and we expect to see double digit growth from Online, Pay & Interactive. The television advertising market continues to show signs of improvement, with ITV Family NAR expected to be up 5% to 6% over the four months to the end of April, and we expect to outperform our estimate of the television advertising market over the full year.
