ITN’s broadcast news revenues increased slightly to £88.9m in 2018, up from £87.8m the year before.
The production company, which makes the ITV News, Channel 4 News and 5 News programmes, said its news revenue is expected to remain consistent in 2019.
In its annual report and accounts, published this week, ITN said group operating profit grew by 14 per cent to £6.6m in 2018 from £5.8m the previous year.
Group revenues saw a marginal increase from £126.4m in 2017 to £126.9m.
This represents a return to form for ITN where profits fell for the first time in seven years in 2017.
But the full-year accounts for 2018 also revealed a fall in pre-tax profit of 64 per cent from £3.7m in 2017 to £1.3m.
ITN put this drop down to the exceptional £2.6m sale of its stake in digital content producer Diagonal View in 2017.
Christy Swords, chair of ITN’s board of directors, said: “ITN returned to operating profit growth in 2018, despite a trading environment which continues to be challenging.”
ITN chief executive John Hardie stepped down at the end of 2018 and his successor, Anna Mallett, was due to start this month.
The company said there had been a number of “significant achievements and highlights” at ITV News (pictured, host Julie Etchingham) in 2018 including a continued year-on-year audience share increase for its lunchtime, evening and 10pm editions.
It also praised Channel 4 News for an “exceptional” year which saw it win seven Royal Television Society Awards and take home the Investigation of the Year prize at Press Gazette’s British Journalism Awards for its undercover work on Cambridge Analytica.
Finally it said 5 News “continues to lead with stories that are bold and distinctive from the other major terrestrial news outlets”, such as two special programmes on extreme weather and a series looking at the operation of mental health unit Langley Green.
ITN said its maximum daily audience reach across its news programmes was 11.4m.
Picture: ITV News
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