STV Group has seen pre-tax profits jump by 8% to £9.4 million in the first half of the year, along with a year-on-year rise in revenue – up 6% to £57.7m – with growth across each of its broadcast, digital and production divisions.
Broadcast revenue was up 4% in the six months to the end of June, with digital up by 24%, including video on demand (VOD) revenue up by 61%.
In May, STV announced a strategic growth plan aimed at making savings of £2m to fund new investments. That saw the closure of STV2 the following month and more than 30 jobs under threat, but yesterday the broadcaster said it was on track to meeting the savings target.
Chief executive officer, Simon Pitts, told The National that they were making “really good progress” towards their objectives.
“We want to give our viewers high quality news and entertainment on what is the most popular TV channel in Scotland,” he said.
“We want to accelerate growth in our digital business and we want to build a world class production company headquartered in Scotland – and that’s already starting to come through in our numbers.
“Advertising revenue is up 6% overall, regional advertising within that up 15%, digital up 24% and production up 42%, so all parts of the business are growing and I think they’re going well.”
STV achieved its strongest share of viewing for almost a decade at 18.7% – a year-on-year rise of 13% and 10% higher than ITV. Online viewing on the STV player rose by 73% and live simulcast by 68%.
“We know that digital is going mainstream around the UK and the world and we’ve actually got in the STV player the fastest growing streaming service in the country, up by 73%.
“I’m particularly pleased that is also translating directly into increased digital advertising revenue, up by 61%.
“The exciting thing about digital is that it gives you a chance to connect with different types of audiences, to develop an STV for everyone. We’ve been working really hard over the last few months and we’ll continue to on improving the quality and range of shows that we make available on the player. People these days get TV-like levels of quality on digital and 25% of consumption on the STV player is people watching channels live when they’re on the move, or at work.”
Pitts said he was also excited by the group’s four-year partnership with Virgin Media that will see the STV Player launched on its platform.
“The reason it’s really good news is that Virgin Media is in 400,000 Scottish homes – about 20% of Scottish households – and we’re not on there at the moment, so we’ll launch early next year with our on-demand player. We’ll be the first broadcaster to broadcast exclusively in HD on all our regional variants.
“So if you’re in Dundee or Glasgow or Edinburgh you’ll get the right regional variant of STV in HD for the very first time.”
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