ITV (LSE: ITV) is now hiding its quarterly online revenue in its combined Broadcasting & Online category, so who knows how much money it’s making from the web?
Q1 income from that category rose six percent from last year to £390 million. TV ad sales were up eight percent and are forecast to be pushed up 22 percent by World Cup ads in Q2.
Says ITV’s statement, from new CEO Adam Crozier’s first quarter in charge: “Whilst the strategy review is ongoing, ITV is committing incremental investment in programming and online over the second half to provide a stronger platform into 2011.”
No idea what that will go on.
ITV’s web strategy has been in something of a holding pattern since scrapping its lofty £150 million-a-year web revenue target, scaling down original content, losing the Kangaroo opportunity and falling back on ITV.com as a cattch-up video destination with social bits on top.
It’s less imaginative, but it’s working – average monthly uniques are up 22 percent to 8.7 million and video views up 86 percent to 16.4 million. So the online video advertising opportunity is clear – we just don’t know how much ITV made this way during the quarter.
Throughout 2009, ITV online income rose only three percent to £37 million; that’s including Friends Reunited. But income from ITV.com alone rose £6 million to £24 million.
Across the company, total revenue in Q1 rose six percent to £450 million.