ITV revenues are still lagging the overall market, which it estimates to be up 6%, but there are clear signs that its main channel is through the worst and the digital channels are growing strongly.
ITV1 had a terrible 2006, with revenues down 12.4%. In 2007, it will reduce this to 4.4%, with the second half of the year flat compared with the same period a year ago.
Its share of commercial impacts will fall 3.3% in 2007, after a decline of more than 10% last year.
The broadcaster will finish 2007 strongly, according to Grade, who said in today's trading update: "On-screen ITV1's performance has been much improved; we have assembled a formidable senior management team; and we've seen real growth in the whole television advertising market over the second half of the year."
Advertising money continues to flow into the broadcasters' digital channels, which include ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV, GMTV2 and Men & Motors. They are set to make £209m this year, up 32% on last year's revenues.
The company pointed out that ITV2 beat Five in 16-34s viewing numbers in multichannel homes over a full calendar month for the first time in September.
On the internet, ITV was unforthcoming with revenue figures, saying only that Friends Reunited has continued to build its revenues.
ITV released November traffic figures showing that ITV.com attracted 6m unique users and 88m page impressions, and ItvLocal.com attracted 750,000 unique users.
It claimed ITV.com's unique users have grown by 60% since the site's relaunch over the summer.
ITV has been tipped to drop Friends Reunited's subscription model but only said today it is "exploring means of introducing a greater proportion of advertising funded content to the site in order to maximise its value over the long term".
After the update this morning, ITV's share price dipped 0.47% to 85.6p.
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