Ad surge pushes UTV first-half profits to over €9m

A SURGE in television advertising has helped push up first-half profits at Ulster Television to £6.2 million (€9.1m).

The Belfast-based company, owner of the UTV channel and a number of radio stations, said turnover was ahead by 17% at just over £30m (€44m).

UTV, which owns the ITV franchise for Northern Ireland, said its television advertising revenues rose by 16% in the six months to end June 2004.

It said the increase was much better than the 3.8% rise recorded by the ITV network as a whole over the same period.

Ulster said the growth was helped by extra advertising spend during the European football championship. Overall, television ad revenues reached £22.8m (€33.5m).

Chief executive John McCann said the surge had continued since June with ad revenues expected to be 14% ahead in this quarter over last year. The company forecast a 15% rise for October.

Ulster said its radio assets, County Media in Cork and Treaty FM in Limerick, had a strong period with revenues ahead by 9%.

However, Q102 in Dublin, formerly called Lite FM, suffered from relaunch costs and lower revenues.

Mr McCann said he was confident Q102 would recover lost ground and that it has already increased its market share from 5% to 7% of the increasingly competitive Dublin radio market.

Overall, UTV's radio division contributed £4.7m (€6.9m) to group turnover in the first half.

"Our radio stations in Cork and Limerick also recorded improvements in listenership, further strengthening their market leasing positions in these areas. Third-quarter revenues at those two stations is expected to be up by 7%," the company said.

The new media division, which includes its ISP arm and screen advertising business was up from £1.59m (€2.3m) to £2.4m (€3.5m) and further increases are expected with a new push by the company into the broadband market in the Republic.

The company said it will be spending heavily on the launch of a new phone service, but this would start to contribute to group revenues in 2005.

Group earnings per share (EPS) came in 24% ahead at 10.57p. The company will pay shareholders an interim dividend of 4.5p a share, a 10% rise on 2003 halfway payout.

The market was generally impressed by the results, sending the company' shares up by 2% to 427p on the London stock exchange.

But Davy Stockbrokers said: "We will be revising downwards our EPS for the full year from 24p to 22.5 pence to reflect the poor operational performance of the radio division."