UTV Media plc -
Trading update
The Board of UTV Media plc is today providing an update on the
progress of its new UTV Ireland television channel.
Having seen signs of audience growth in Q1, this has stalled in
the last month, demonstrating the difficulty of predicting
audiences for a start-up channel in a competitive market.
After 26 weeks, audience performance for the channel therefore
remains volatile. Whilst weekday peak time has performed
well, with viewership almost 40% greater than both RTE2 and TV3,
day-time and weekend viewing has been disappointing. Overall share
of commercial impacts is therefore around 11% which is lower than
the target set for the channel’s first year of operation.
The Board has today approved an action plan to address the
audience shortfall but recognises that this will take time to
deliver the required improvement in viewership. The Board is
therefore assuming no significant improvement in overall audience
levels for the second half of the year and is therefore revising
its guidance for the full year and now expects UTV Ireland to incur
losses of £11.5m in 2015.
The Board reaffirms its strategic objective for UTV Ireland to
be the second most watched channel in the Republic of Ireland by 2017 and remains
confident that it will create long-term strategic value for
shareholders. It is clear, however, that the channel will take
longer than originally anticipated to become profitable.
In the light of this, the Board has agreed with its bank lenders
for the net debt/ebitda covenants on its facilities to be raised
from 3.5:1 to 4.5:1 for a period of one year.
23 June
2015
Enquiries
Orla McKibbin, Director of
Communications
Tel: +44 (0) 28 9026 2188 / +44 (0) 7879 666 427
For and on behalf of UTV Media plc
Norman McKeown
Group Finance Director & Company Secretary
23 June 2015