While revenue was down 3% last year to £2.029bn and profits fell by 41% to £167m, Grade revealed a raft of cost-cutting measures to deliver savings in them face of a 17% decline in ad revenue in the first quarter of 2009.
As well as disposing of Friends Reunited and considering the future of its digital terrestrial multiplex business SDN, ITV is reducing the network programming budget by £654m this year, keeping it flat in 2010 and cutting it by a further £70m in 2011. Efficiency savings, of a further £50m this year rising to £70m in 2010 will also come from the loss of 600 jobs around the company.
Read Jeremy Lee's Blog
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