STV Group beats expectations despite 4% fall in advertising revenue
STV Group has announced a 4% slump in advertising revenue, although it has claimed that this shortfall was an improvement on expectations.
In an Interim Management Statement made this morning, the group said that it has ‘continued to make good progress’ during the most recent financial quarter up to 15 November, but expects that national advertising revenue for November and December to be ‘slightly below’ the ITV Network, between 2-3%, as a result of high revenue shares during the previous year.
Revenue from regional airtime was also down 18% in Q3 but has returned to growth during the last quarter, although this is said to have slowed as a result of the macro-economic climate, and is expected be down by 10% for the whole year. Cost savings being implemented within the broadcaster will aim to offset this loss.
Looking towards next year, the commercial broadcaster said that it remained ‘cautious’ but was encouraged by its ‘strong on-screen performance’ in outperforming the broader ITV Network and expected a ‘positive impact’ from the Euro 2012 Championships.
In recent weeks STV has also said that it will launch its hyper-local news service STV Local in Glasgow in the first months of next year, and announced that it had received a commission from ITV 2 to co-produced alongside Kinetic Content and Group Entertainment, ‘Perez Hilton Super Fan’.
Regional news programmes for Edinburgh and the East of Scotland, as well as for Glasgow and the West of Scotland had also launched, increasing the broadcaster’s new audience by 17% it was claimed.
Rob Woodward, CEO of STV Group, said: "We are broadly on track to deliver our targets and our strategy remains clear going forward with investment in strategic partnerships, helping extend the STV brand in our core Scottish market and beyond. We are committed to delivering public service broadcasting and creative content across all platforms and to delivering shareholder value. This is an exciting time for STV, with a number of strategic initiatives underway and a true connection with our audience, we are confident in our position as Scotland's leading digital media company."