TIDMUTV 
 
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 GBP11.5m 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 
 
 
 
END
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