Earlier today, ITV reported a 4% lift in revenues to £1.03bn for the six months to the end of June. Net ad revenue rose 2% year on year, behind a market average of 3%, with ITV having a tough comparative due to its World Cup ad boost in 2010.
Speaking after the results this morning, Crozier said TV spot advertising remained "incredibly important" to ITV. He said: "It's very important that not for one second [do we] take our eye off the ball of maximising revenue from television advertising."
Given the current economic and trading climate, Ebiquity has changed its initial prediction that the TV ad market would increase by 3% over the whole year in 2011, to a rise of just 1%.
Simon Cross, UK practice leader, media, at Ebiquity, said he expected TV ad revenue to be down 1% year on year in Q2, flat year on year in the third quarter and down 2% year on year in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Cross said: "Q2 will now almost certainly show a very slight decline on 2010, and Q4 will be worse. Given the gloomy economic data coming out, it’s actually rather miraculous 2011 should even be close to what was, after all, a bizarrely buoyant 2010."
Ebiquity is more optimistic than ITV about the third quarter. Crozier said current estimates suggested ITV’s TV ad revenue would be down around 2% year on year for the period July to September, which he said was better than the market.
Crozier added that ITV was laying the "foundations or ground work" to build revenue outside its traditional net advertising revenue (NAR) measure and would look to develop new revenue streams that were linked to programming and were "developed outside of traditional advertising".
Crozier said: "So I expect us to start growing non-NAR revenue as we move forward. In total, our non-NAR revenue has increased in the first half by £21m, so that’s the beginning of that effect starting to come through.
"Percentage-wise there is probably a slight improvement. What I’m interested in initially is getting these new revenue streams going and growing, and if the ad market is growing, then frankly I’ll be delighted."
Kelly Williams, ITV’s new director of TV sales, starts on Monday (1 August) and Crozier said the restructure of ITV’s commercial team over the past six months would make sure ITV continued to be the "most powerful marketing platform in the UK".
Crozier said: "TV takes sponsorship money and thinks the job is done. It’s really just the beginning. We need to look at how we make the most of it and bring it to life and make this stand out from the crowd.
"These take different skills and different ways of working. I think we are [the most powerful marketing platform in the UK] at the moment, but there is always more we can do with it. That’s really what the changes are all about."
Ebiquity forecasts ITV will struggle to maintain last year’s audiences in Q4 due to the impact of the snow in 2010 and the absence of Cheryl Cole from the whole of this year's series of 'The X Factor', and Simon Cowell from the majority of the series.
Cross said: "The key dynamic in December will be the decline in the supply of key audiences year on year. This is the worst sort of inflation-driver, but the revenue declines will at least mean that the effect on prices is muted."
ITV meanwhile was bullish about its ratings performance, reporting that nine out of the top 10 commercial programmes by audience were broadcast on ITV1, as were 99% of all commercial programmes attracting more than five million viewers.
Crozier described the performance of 'Britain's Got Talent', which only featured Cowell in the later stages, as having a broadly flat average audience year on year.
The show's final was the most-watched programme, after the Royal Wedding, in the first half of the year.
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