ITV plc (ITV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning or good afternoon, all, and welcome to the ITV Plc 2023 Full Year Results Call. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the call to Carolyn McCall, CEO, to begin.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to ITV's 2023 Full Year Results. I'm here with Chris Kennedy, our CFO and COO. I will hand over to Chris shortly to walk you through our financial and operational performance before I cover our strategic progress. But first, let me start with a very quick overview. 2023 was a challenging year but we delivered a robust financial and operational performance, and we've made significant progress against all 3 strategic pillars. The actions we've taken to focus ITV on growth in Studios and Digital Advertising has enabled us to navigate through the significant economic headwinds, which contributed to a severe slowdown in the linear TV advertising market. Now the headwinds coincided with the peak investment year for ITVX. ITV Studios and strong Digital Advertising growth substantially offset the 15% decline in linear advertising with total revenue down only 2%. ITV Studios reported growth ahead of the market and delivered record revenues and profits and ITVX had a hugely successful launch year with very strong digital revenues driven by a step change in viewing, showing, I think, the strategy is demonstrably working. We are on track to deliver our 2026 KPI targets. So in order to derisk linear revenues from both cyclical and structural headwinds, we are initiating a new multiyear strategic restructuring and efficiency program right across the group which Chris will talk through in a bit more detail in a moment. Finally, as you know, we have agreed the sale of our 50% share of BritBox International to the BBC and the entire net proceeds will be returned to shareholders via buyback. The next slide demonstrates the group's financial performance over the last 5 years. ITV's group revenues were the second highest in our history, only slightly down on last year. Revenues in our growth drivers continue to perform well with ITV Studios up 4%, and digital revenues up 19%, reflecting the successful investment in the Streaming business. In total, M&E revenues were down 7%, impacted by the decline in linear advertising, of course. And as expected, EBITA was down reflecting investment in ITVX. So we are really well placed to grow profits from here. In line with our stated dividend policy, the Board is proposing a final dividend of 3.3p, maintaining a full year dividend of 5p, which we expect to grow over time. Look, I'm really, really proud of the team and the progress that has been made todate. We are either on track or ahead of our 2026 KPI targets, which we will go through in more detail a bit later. And now I'm going to hand over to Chris to talk you through the results in more detail.

Thanks, Carolyn. Good morning, everyone. I'll start with the performance of Studios. We continue to focus on the most attractive segments of the market, local and global streaming platforms, high-end scripted drama and our portfolio of world-class global formats. Total revenues were up 4%, which was ahead of the market. It includes our benefit from our acquisition of Plimsoll Productions, but also a GBP 15 million unfavorable foreign exchange movements. Total organic revenue at constant currency was up 3%, following a very strong growth of 14% last year, and we remain on track to grow ITV Studios' organic revenue by at least 5% on average per annum over the 5 years to 2026. Revenue growth was driven by the U.K., with productions, including Vigil for BBC and Squid Game: The Challenge for Netflix, which was one of their most watched unscripted original productions. Sales to M&E were up 3% with several new and returning dramas for ITV1 and ITVX, including After the Flood, Vera and Grace. ITV Studios' U.S. revenues declined year-on-year following significant deliveries in 2022 as well as more muted demand from networks. International revenue was also down, impacted by softer demand from free-to-air broadcasters across Europe and a number of deliveries being delayed from 2023 to 2024. Global partnerships saw good revenue growth from the international distribution of new titles and the strength and breadth of our catalog of over 90,000 hours. Adjusted EBITA was up 10%, and we restored our margins to within our target range. We continue to look for ways to improve margins over the medium term, and we're doing this through initiatives such as reducing our property footprint taking steps to digitize production and more frequent use of remote editing. In total, we delivered GBP 13 million of additional savings in the year. As previously guided, 2024 will be impacted by the U.S. writers and actors' strikes, which would delay around GBP 80 million of revenue from 2024 to 2025. We're also seeing a continuation of the weaker demand from free-to-air broadcasters in Europe who are holding back spend until they see more certainty in the TV advertising market. Building on a strong track record of successful shows for streamers, we're increasingly well positioned in this important segment of the market, and we're confident that we can continue to grow market share. Before I move to Media and Entertainment, I want to highlight a change in U.K. legislation, which has no economic impact on ITV Studios but will change how key metrics are reported from 2024 onwards, in particular, the EBITA margin. I wouldn't normally go into this level of detail, but it's important that you understand what the effect of this change will be. The U.K. has changed the regime for high-end TV or HETV tax credits, replacing it with a new scheme, audiovisual expenditure credits or AVEC. The change doesn't affect the economic value of the credit which in 2023 were GBP 85 million and will not have an impact on our profit after tax. The new scheme is one of expenditure credits as opposed to corporate tax relief, which requires a change to the accounting treatment so that they're included within statutory operating profit rather than within the consolidated tax charge. The effect of this change in legislation will therefore be to increase our EBITA, adjusted EBITA, adjusted EBITA margin, profit before tax and tax expense, but it will leave our profit after tax unchanged. 2024 will include a mix of HETV and AVEC and when we report at the half and the full year, we'll clearly highlight the impact that AVEC has had on the presentation of our financial results, and there's more detail on the change in the finance review in the RNS. So now on to M&E. Total revenue was down 7%. Within this, digital revenues were up 19%, well ahead of the market. ITVX has sustained its success in the year following launch. The additional investment has driven significant additional viewing and revenues. Digital advertising revenues were up 21% and subscription revenues increased 9%. Digital revenues are now 23% of total M&E revenues, up from 18% in 2022, and we're on a good trajectory to deliver at least GBP 750 million of digital revenues by 2026. Despite the strong performance of Digital Advertising, total advertising revenue declined 8% as guided. More details on ad revenue can be found in the appendices. Partnerships and other revenues declined year-on-year, mainly driven by lower competition revenue, and we expect partnership and other revenues to decline by around GBP 10 million in 2024, following our decision to revise our partnership agreements to allow ITVX viewers to watch in HD and allow ITV to target ads to a much larger proportion of those viewers using Planet V. Content costs were GBP 1.293 billion, in line with guidance, and we're pleased with the viewing and revenue performance that's been delivered. Half of the growth in viewing on ITVX came from new content, attracting hard-to-reach viewers and encouraging viewers to watch for longer. At the same time, we continue to optimize spend on linear and further detail on content spend can also be found in the appendices. ITVX's strong performance in 2023 has shown us that we can grow viewing significantly with slightly less overall content spend than planned, as we further optimize linear, evolve our windowing strategy and improve personalization. As a result, content costs in 2024 will be around GBP 1.275 billion. At the same time, we'll increase our marketing spend by GBP 15 million based on the learnings from 2023. We'll continue to evaluate content and marketing ROI and adjust as necessary. Variable costs were up 18%, mainly driven by an increase in bandwidth and other streaming related costs as well as third-party commercial payaways. Infrastructure and overhead costs were flat year-on-year with inflation and the investment in ITVX, offset by GBP 11 million of cost savings, again, ahead of our target. ITVX' incremental investment was as planned at launch and has delivered strong digital revenue growth. In total, adjusted EBITDA was down as expected, reflecting the impact of the challenging linear advertising market and ITVX investment. Turning to the outlook. We've seen an improvement in TAR at the start of this year, and we expect Q1 to be up 3%. ITVX has started 2024 well, and we're seeing continued strong growth in viewing and digital revenues year-on-year. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow. Cash conversion was high at 102% due to the U.S. writers and actors' strikes. In FY '23, there was a relief in working capital as a result of lower production activity. This will revert in FY '24 as we resume production. So across the 2 years, we expect cash conversion to be at the normal level of 80%. Our net debt at the end of the period reduced to GBP 553 million, and during the year, we refinanced our GBP 259 million Eurobond by drawing on a GBP 230 million full year term loan. We continue to have a robust balance sheet with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 1x. The accounting surplus of our pension scheme is GBP 209 million. The next triennial valuation is nearing completion, and we're hopeful that it will show a surplus on a technical funding basis. We currently expect the deficit contributions in 2024 to be less than in 2023, but we'll update you once the valuation is completed. Now you're familiar with our capital allocation framework, which remains unchanged. The Board has proposed a 3.3p final dividend, which gives a full year dividend of 5p per share, a total return of around GBP 200 million. In addition, we've announced that we will return the entire net proceeds of the disposal of BritBox International via our share buyback, which will start today. Given the current share price, the Board believes this will create the most value for shareholders. Our existing cost-saving program, which you should already have in your model targets GBP 150 million of savings between 2019 and 2026. To date, it has delivered GBP 130 million of permanent annualized savings, and we're on track to deliver the full GBP 150 million by 2025, 1 year early. We're now in the early stages of a new strategic restructuring and efficiency program across the group to reshape the cost base, enhance profitability and support the growth drivers of Studios and Streaming. We're building on the foundations we've established in digital and data and the significant progress we've made in transforming ITV from a linear broadcaster to a multi-platform broadcaster and streamer. Savings will come mainly from tech and operational efficiencies, organizational redesign across the group, M&E and Studios and permanent reductions in discretionary spend. By the end of 2024, we expect the program to have delivered incremental annualized gross savings of at least GBP 50 million per annum, which gives us GBP 30 million a year of gross benefit in 2024. There will be GBP 50 million of one-off costs to deliver these savings. The ongoing program is designed to deliver further material incremental savings over a number of years, and we'll give you further information as the program progresses. All of these savings are over and above the existing cost program. And finally, here are the key planning assumptions. Those I haven't covered already are that the tax rate is expected to be around 25%, finance costs are expected to be around GBP 35 million, exceptional items are expected to be around GBP 90 million, reflecting the costs associated with our restructuring and efficiency program and the rollout of our new finance and HR system. And the cash impact of exceptionals is expected to be a similar amount. Now back to Carolyn.

Thank you, Chris. Our strategic vision, I think you know, is to be the leader in U.K. advertiser-funded streaming and an expanding global force in content. You are very familiar with our strategy, which has 3 key pillars: expand studios, supercharge streaming and optimize broadcast. All this is supported by being a vertically integrated producer, broadcaster and streamer, which benefits both businesses. For Studios, it provides a base of core commissions, a platform to make content famous and critically, it helps attract and retain talent, which is so key to us as a creative business. For M&E, it gives access to world-class content for ITV's channels and ITVX and it facilitates deeper and more creative and productive partnerships with advertisers. So let's move to the first of our strategic pillars, expand studios. We are growing the business by genre, by geography and by customer, and our strength in each will continue to enable us to take market share over the medium term. In 2023, we continued to deliver against the 4 priorities we set out at the start of 2022 and remain on track, as we've said, to deliver our 2026 KPI target. So we've grown our scripted business with 316 hours of high-end scripted content delivered this year, including Mr Bates vs The Post Office for ITV and Fool Me Once for Netflix, which gained global attention. Two, we've further diversified our customer base with almost 1/3 of Studios' revenues now coming from streaming platform. That's up from 22% in 2022 and ahead of our target, which is 30%. We currently have projects commissioned or in development with all the major streaming platforms and many local and regional platforms as well. Third, we continue to focus on our global formats with 19 now sold in 3 or more countries and new formats emerging such as My Mum, Your Dad and I Kissed a Boy, which have the potential to be global hits. Supported by our integrated model, the final priority is to attract and retain leading talent in the industry, and we have done that consistently and successfully. Now all of those things are going to help us deliver our target of organic revenue growth of 5% on average per year to 2026. It will also enable us to grow ahead of the market while achieving industry-leading margins of 13% to 15%. Now there are lots of questions about AI, and I thought we'd just touch on that here. We're using AI across ITV Studios to enhance creativity and also to optimize our overall production processes. We are still at a stage where we are testing and we're trialing. We're working with partners -- we're seeking partners, we're working with partners. And we're focusing really looking at incremental revenue opportunities as well as looking at [ cost efficiencies ] to enhance productivity. So just a couple of examples to give you a feel for this. We're using [ Paper Cups ] to [ adopt ] content into local languages that enables us to sell to global players more easily and cost effectively. Another tool we're using is something called Trint, which would very, very quickly transcribe a video and audio file. So we'll keep you updated on what we're doing more generally on AI as we go through the year. The global content market is large and attractive, with platforms increasingly needing a mix of content to succeed in a really very competitive environment. The number of streaming platforms has increased by over 50% since 2019. This slide highlights some of the defining strengths of ITV Studios, which we will continue to build upon in 2024 and beyond. These strengths are our scale and diversity, our investment in development creating very strong pipelines, our high-quality IP and our strong relationships with a really broad range of customers. We expect to see growth in the key segments we operate in, include content licensing and increasing stream and demand for unscripted content as well as the continued demand for premium scripted content. Therefore, we believe ITV Studios is very well positioned to take advantage of the growth while continuing our track record of growing faster than the market. Our ability to attract creative talent is, of course -- we've already said this, it's key to our success. And ITV Studios is a really attractive home for talent due to our labeled structure because of the culture, it's very creative culture and the vertical integration with that M&E is definitely a benefit for creative talent. So this slide demonstrates some of our more recent talent deals or renewals and also examples of their really impressive slates such as Fool Me Once for Netflix by Quay Street, Big Beasts from Plimsoll Studios for Apple and One Piece by Tomorrow Studios for Netflix. Now that was one of our most watched original scripted productions globally in 2023 with 38 million views. Now I'm going to move on to the second strategic pillar, which is supercharge streaming, where our aim, of course, is to drive digital viewing through ITVX and drive digital revenue through Planet V. As you all know, we launched ITVX, and we were on time and our investment is completely on plan. In its first full year, we delivered a step change in digital viewing. So we've increased the number of monthly active users by almost 20%, and those viewers are spending more time on the platform with streaming hours up 26% to 1.5 billion hours. This has been a key goal for us and will continue to be. It enables us to reduce the ad load as planned, which users really like. So ITVX viewing has driven a significant increase in advertising inventory, and we've monetized that effectively using the power of Planet V and our digital ad innovations. That's enabled us to grow digital revenues by 19%. Through ITVX Premium, we have simplified our viewer propositions and taken ownership of the relationship with subscribers and as a result, the number of U.K. subscribers have declined marginally year-on-year as we've transitioned subscribers from BritBox U.K. into ITVX Premium. And we've also -- has also been combined with the closure of the Amazon ITV Catchup channel. As we continue to simplify our ITVX Premium proposition, which is really, really important to consumers, the BritBox service on Amazon channels and the BritBox stand-alone app will close in '24 and that will also have an impact on subscriber numbers and subscription revenues in the short term. We are clear that our focus for ITVX has to be on our ad-funded proposition and the momentum we are seeing on ITVX and the successful monetization of the digital advertising inventory means we are firmly on track to deliver at least GBP 750 million of digital revenues by 2026. So looking at the viewing performance now of ITVX in a bit more detail, we're very pleased, as you can imagine, with the strong results our investment has delivered. Brand awareness has increased from 60% to over 90%. We are attracting more people. And importantly, we're attracting those hard-to-reach target audiences, many of them who had already moved from linear to streaming viewing and we couldn't capture them before. Streaming hours now amongst light years are up 65%. And these viewers are coming to ITVX more frequently and they're much watching for longer with streaming hours per viewer up 27%. So it's an impressive demonstration of the power of exclusive content, 90% of those that watch an ITVX Premier went on to watch additional content on the platform. The team has now moved from an incredibly intense launch year of ITVX to running the business, and we'll continue to make further improvements for viewers. We've started the year really well. We're confident ITVX will continue to grow strongly, building on the momentum we already have. Examples: in product, we're already seeing double-digit increases in viewers watching more content due to the recommendation engine, which we introduced in November. We're going to look to increase viewing further through greater personalization. We're also making further improvements on our homepage to boost engagement and improve the news experience across mobile. And in content, we will have more exclusive live events such as the Oscars Red Carpet and Celebrity Big Brother. We will further improve our content windowing strategy, harnessing the significant data we have to continuously test and learn what is working best. Now turning to distribution, ITVX is available at almost 100% of U.K. households and all the main TV platforms. In Q2, we will launch ITVX to millions of PlayStation 4 and 5 games console to be really good. We will further improve the discoverability of ITVX by creating additional links that bring users directly into ITV programs from the main screens of their devices. The launch of Freely, which is imminent, the new TV streaming service, which combines live TV and Catchup of the free-to-air broadcasters will also help make ITV along with the other PSBs, more accessible. And finally, we are further evolving our marketing strategy where we see an opportunity to adopt a more responsive approach to highlight popular programs to commercially valuable audiences. We've already seen an awareness spike since making this change, and our modeling indicates we can attract incremental monthly active users. And for this reason, we are investing an additional GBP 15 million in the year in launching. Each of these actions will drive further reach and viewing of ITVX and will deliver more inventory to sell to advertisers. Now on to digital revenue. Planet V, of course, has been critical to the success of ITVX. It has transformed the way we interact with advertisers. It enables us to significantly improve the monetization of our digital ad inventory and grow our serviceable addressable market. We offer increasingly sophisticated and valuable ad inventory, which advertisers are prepared to pay more for. Over the last 2 years, we've transformed all advertisers onto targeted audiences, which has enabled us to deliver double-digit growth in our CPMs. Planet V also allows ITV to compete for online video budgets, which we could never do before, such as YouTube and take share in this large and growing addressable advertising market. Now in total, that market is estimated to have been around GBP 6.8 billion in 2023. That's based on the latest figures we have available. Now there's a hugely long tail of really, really tiny advertisers in YouTube that are not really at all relevant to us, but it does mean that we are able to compete effectively for the larger brands in that cohort. And since we launched Planet V, we have attracted over 1,000 new advertisers to ITV. Now we're going to be doing a deep dive into Planet V and out of this result cycle, so you can meet the wider team, and we can share a lot more detail on this. Driven by our very compelling digital advertising proposition, we have grown our digital revenues by over GBP 140 million since 2021. We've grown digital advertising revenues faster than the entire digital display advertising market and the paid search ad market in 2023, and we've grown CPMs. ITVX now has 40 million registered users on ITVX, which we augment with third-party data sources such as Tesco Dunnhumby and Boots' Advantage Card to create a range of targeting solutions for advertisers. We've also introduced a number of innovative digital ad solutions such as weather-based targeting and automated contextual targeting. This is where we apply machine learning to scan and catalog our entire content library, which means we're able to identify [ new ] moments and objects in our programs, which gets the advertisers closer to relevant content. And we will continue to roll out more ad solutions and products, such as Pause Ads, which is launching imminently and will seamlessly play ads when a user pauses content. Also, we've expanded our sponsorship proposition on ITVX with exclusive sponsored rails and advertiser-funded fast channels and shortly, we'll be introducing subtitles on the ads. Demonstrating the effectiveness of all the advertising on ITVX to advertisers is also key to growing revenues. And we have built a range of measurement tools focused on outcomes, which demonstrates this. And that's really been welcomed by our advertisers. So we've been really very busy on ad innovation and product development, which is meeting the needs of advertisers. Now let's move to our final strategic pillar, optimized broadcast. We have already significantly digitally transformed the broadcast business. We're going to continue to do that, and we're going to adapt to changing viewer habits. Internally, what this means is we are looking at ways of increasing our efficiency and our productivity. While for our viewers, it's about ensuring we engage our audiences through our live content such as sport and our big entertainment shows that continues to drive the live mass audiences, which are so valuable to advertisers and which only really ITV can do. We have outperformed our target by giving advertisers over 90% of the biggest 1,000 commercial programs. Our share of commercial viewing has also been broadly maintained at just under 33%. And this robust performance demonstrates ITV's market-leading position in the U.K. What sets us apart from our competitors commercially is our unique proposition. A person sees about 5,000 ads every day. So advertising has to be memorable. Most importantly, it has to engage that person emotionally. And TV really does move people, and we can give you so many examples of that. ITV does this particularly well. First, it delivers mass simultaneous reach. Second, it offers advertisers scaled and sophisticated targeted advertising which is wholly owned and operated by ITV. And third, it works with clients and agencies really closely on innovating and emotionally connecting partnerships across streaming and linear using our flagship program brands at a scale not seen anywhere else. And all of this is in a brand-safe and completely trusted environment. And that's what ensures that ITV remains highly compelling in a competitive ad market. This has enabled us to outperform the TV ad market in the year with ITV digital advertising revenues growing faster than the digital market, as I mentioned, and sponsorship is also ahead of the market, delivering a record year for ITV. So in summary, in 2023, we delivered a robust and resilient financial and operating performance. We've made significant progress against our 3 strategic pillars and we are well on track to deliver our 2026 KPIs. As you can see in this final slide, the successful delivery of the strategy is repositioning ITV towards growth, growth driven by Studios and by Digital. We are very focused, as you can see on growth and also on efficiency and productivity, which will ensure we can grow profit with a more resilient and future-proof business. By 2026, we expect 2/3 of the business to come from these growth drivers. Thank you, and over to you now for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from Adam Berlin from UBS.

I'll ask 3, if I can. The first question is you've given us really helpful guidance on Q1 TAR. Is there anything you can tell us about bookings into April and May and whether that kind of growth rate can continue? And my second question is about the content costs. Is the GBP 1,275 million you're guiding for '24, is that the right kind of level going forward now? I mean obviously, [indiscernible], are we kind of done with the incremental spend to drive ITVX usage? And then my final question is, has there been any impact from the launch of Amazon Prime Video advertising in the market so far this year. Are you worried about that as a competitor to ITVX and digital revenues?

Thanks, Adam. And can I just say thanks to you and everyone who's on. I know how busy a day it is out there today, not just with the budget but other results. So thanks for joining us. I'll just take the Q1 TAR. We would say that we are -- we would expect Q2 with the euro for ITV. We've got 1 month of the euros in Q2. But we would expect to be -- we're cautiously very positive about it, if that makes sense. So we are seeing an improvement in the ad market for sure. We're up against very easy comps, if you like. It was a very tough year last year for linear, as you know. But I would say that it is -- the conversations we're having and the performance we've had in Q1 is definitely an improved market than compared to last year. And also pleasingly, I think if you look at 2019 Q1 which is the last normalized quarter really of Q1 we've had given COVID and then the bounce back, et cetera, we're up 3% on 2019 ad performance. So I think there is an improving ad market out there.

Yes. And then on content, Adam, we are really, really pleased with the performance of the incremental spend that we made in '23 around ITVX. And you'll see actually we've spent less than what we said we would spend when we announced the launch of ITVX back in '21. And that's because we've been able to drive that viewing without spending as much as we had planned. It's fair to say we've taken an awful lot of learnings. The beauty, obviously, of having an online services, we've got really granular viewing data, and we know the viewing behaviors as well, people going from one piece of content to another. So as Carolyn mentioned, the exclusives absolutely did their job. The exclusives are there, the fireworks to bring people in, 90% of people who watched an exclusive went on to watch something else. And then the acquisitions we've made, so that wealth of hours we've got on service has also really performed well for us. So all of that is to say, the GBP 1.275 billion we've guided for '24, I would say, plus or minus -- content budgets will always go up and down a little bit, but plus or minus, then that is the new normal. We will keep the content ROI under review at all times if we can spend less and still drive the viewing, we'll do that. And then we also flagged in the announcement that we're actually increasing our marketing spend next year by GBP 15 million. And again, that's from the learnings we have from 2023. It's great to have this wealth of content. But actually looking at the ROI on the incremental spend, we believe we can drive even further viewing from that. And I suppose the other thing I would say is we're really confident about continuing to drive viewing because as Carolyn said in the presentation, there are a lot of initiatives on the product as well. So we've got the marketing. We've got expanded distribution. We've got the annualization of the distribution that we put on last year. And then we've got things like personalization coming through and using AI and machine learning, obviously, to then make sure that we're constantly keeping viewers in. And again, we mentioned the stat in the presentation, that 27% increase in dwell time, how long people are on the service is really important too. We want light viewers. We want them to stay for longer. And we've got a real path to do that on the content spend that we've guided.

Yes. I think on the Amazon question, it's very early days. I think, look, there's no question Amazon Prime advertising is going to be a player in the market. There's no question. I think with Netflix and Disney, that's very early days, and I think they don't have the scale the ITV or Amazon have actually. And they don't have the measurement tools. So I think it's different. I mean, Amazon will -- it's going to be interesting to see how that evolves, what kind of model they evolve. It's still early days. I would go back to, we have a really compelling advertising proposition and a sponsorship proposition. And we can offer mass simultaneous reach, as you know. And we do that better than anybody else can do, that mass simultaneous reach, and that's not just for live. 70% people are still watching live TV or over 70%. The factors we do that on entertainment shows, we do that on dramas, you get these big audiences. That is -- that's a competitive advantage for us, and we will continue to do that. And then we have this, as Chris said, highly sophisticated targeted advertising. We do data matching with Dunnhumby, Tesco Dunnhumby and Boots'. We do a whole range of other things. We can do creative partnerships that none of the global tech platforms do. We get very, very closely involved with the advertisers, sponsors as well as the content as well as the talent and produce things that are very, very different. So our proposition is extremely compelling. It's also highly differentiated in the market. And I'm not sure an advertiser, they'll go digital or they'll go -- which will be a part of as well as Amazon, and then they'll go TV, but they'll also do sponsorship and creating partnerships where we will get a big share of that cake. So I think it's just very different. It's not that we'll never be complacent about new entrants to the advertising market. But I do think it's a very different kind of model and a very different kind of sell.

Can I just -- my question was more about, I would say, hard to speculate how things would evolve in the future, but just in Q1 so far, you haven't noticed any kind of change since that's been launched in terms of advertisers leaving ITVX to go to Amazon. Is there any kind of impact like that, that you've actually seen?

No.

No.

The next question comes from Tom Singlehurst from Citi.

Tom here from Citi. Thank you for the presentation. A couple of questions, if it's okay. On ITVX and the relationship between the impressions you're delivering and the advertising. I know it's a reversal of perhaps how it trended in the past. But it does look like there's been a big investment in the user experience by reducing the ad load. So I suppose...

I'm really sorry, we're not hearing you very well. Do you think you just repeat that first question. It was ITVX impressions is what we got.

Hopefully, you can hear me. I do apologize.

Yes, much better.

Yes. So the question was the overall impressions grew faster than the revenue for ITVX, which I know is reversing a trend from history. But nevertheless, it's a big investment in the user experience by reducing the ad load. And so I just wanted to know whether we are now in sort of steady state on ITVX in terms of the ad load and whether we should anticipate revenue to grow more in line with impressions from here on in? Or is there any other moving part in terms of pricing that we might expect. So that was the first question. The second question was on the BritBox sale. I mean, speaking for myself, I mean that slightly caught us by surprise. I mean, partly because I didn't necessarily expect you to sell it but also didn't really value it as the level that you ended up achieving. I suppose, is there anything else left down the back of the SOFR in terms of potential asset sales? And then finally, for Chris, I mean, the pension looks like it's in much better shape. I know you mentioned the triennial valuation. But when can we expect that improved pension position to translate into a lower cash drag?

Why don't you take the whole lot then?

Okay. So yes, on ITVX impressions in advertising, you're absolutely right. The ad load has come down. It's about 40% from the Q4 2022 into H1 of '23 and we did flag at the time. When we launched ITVX, we did say one of the reasons was that ad revenue had been growing faster than viewing and that we felt that ad loads were getting to an unsustainable level. So we have reset those ad levels -- or ad loads, sorry, to a level we think is more normal. So that, I think, it answers your question.

And it's a much improved viewer experience -- user experience and the feedback on that has been positive. And I think what it does is it actually makes people stay on the site. So it increases the stickiness of that. So you've seen those numbers on that. So it's actually working. It never stayed static on ad load. I think it will depend on the period. It will depend on the events, et cetera, et cetera. But our aim is to sustain this to keep the ad loads at this kind of level within a range because it is a better user experience.

And again, that's another great use of our data and our viewing data because we can see how viewers react to different ad loads. So that will inform the decisions as well. And then -- so yes, I think there's been a reset of the ad load. As Carolyn said, going forward, it will be more like at this level. And therefore, you probably should see revenue growing in line with impressions. But I would say we're generating the viewing and then Kelly's team monetize it, and there will always be slight differences. So don't expect it to constantly grow every quarter in the same relationship because there will be differences over the period and with the content schedule. BritBox sale, just we are really pleased with that sale and we are really pleased that we've been able to use the proceeds to fund the buyback for shareholders. We do think that gives them a really good return. And it's a significant buyback. It will be almost 10% of the market capitalization. So it will make a real difference to [indiscernible].

And I would just say on that is precisely what you kind of asked in your question, which is you didn't really value it, you couldn't really value BritBox International. And for us, it was a nonstrategic asset. And I use those words carefully in that we would -- our core growth drivers are ITVX and Studios, obviously. And those are the 2 things we need to focus on. And so we felt this was the right time, especially the share price where it was. So it was a combination of a great asset which was a joint venture, which we never really consolidate and wasn't strategic for us, and it was the right price. I mean, most importantly, was the right price.

And also, just a really healthy return for ITV. The team at BritBox International did an absolutely amazing job to go from a start-up at the back end of 2017 to a business worth GBP 0.5 billion in 2023. So that team did a great job.

And I think on the SOFR question, obviously, we haven't got a SOFR, nothing in the back of it.

No. But we always look at all of the labels around the world where the team are constantly investing further in labels and testing other in genres and so on. So we do keep a very careful eye on returns from all the businesses around the world. On pensions, we are very close to getting the triennial valuation done probably in weekly contact now with the Trustees. So we're pretty much there. As it's said in the statement, we're hopeful that it will be in surplus from a deficit funding perspective. That's what determines what contributions go into the scheme. There will always -- there's an asset-backed scheme so that pays in around GBP 5 million a year. That will continue into the future. But after that, we're very hopeful that the contributions will be significantly less than the GBP 75 million a year that we've historically had to pay and less than the GBP 40 million we paid in 2023.

[Operator Instructions]The next question comes from Julien Roch from Barclays.

Congratulations on the results. My first question is on Studios. At your Investor Day in December '21, you had a 5% kind of medium-term guidance for ITV Studios. As your market view changed, can you update the [indiscernible] guidance? That's my first question. Second one is Q1 saw up 3%. Usually, you give January-February and a range for March, and you did that. And then last one for Chris, planning assumption on Page 14. On non-programming costs in M&E, what absolute level can we expect in full year '24? Could you give us the cost savings, [indiscernible], but there's also other moving part underlying inflation and so on and so forth. So while you are already very good at giving those numbers, it's the job of an analyst asking for more?

What page was that.

Yes, the planning assumption.

Yes. Okay. So look, I think your question on -- the first question, Julien, it's just a bit slightly harder to hear. I think that was on medium-term guidance?

Yes, the guidance on Studio and the 5% guidance at the '21 Investor Day.

No. So I mean, we would say on a CAGR basis, our KPI target is not changing. We're sticking to that target. We believe that that can be made. So there's no question on that. I think just to give you some color on the market itself, I would say the strikes, both actor and writer strikes, not only has shifted a chunk GBP 80 million we've said of production into next year. It's just a shift right basically, which -- because we can't place it anywhere else. So that's the first thing. Second thing is I think it is worth bearing in mind that when those strikes were on, the impact was twofold. One was the shift in production year-on-year, but the other one was that any conversations of commissioning [ shut ] completely [indiscernible]. So ideal picture is any kind of commissioning conversations could not happen because of the strike rules effectively. And that has delayed -- everything on the commissioning side has been delayed as well. So this is a blip for this year. There is also the effect of the free-to-airs, being very much more careful about their overall budget, not just their content budget, just because last year has been so tough on advertising on linear. So I think you've got those external factors, and we would say this is a blip for the Studios market. We believe it's still a very large and attractive market. And just one other point on that, where ITV Studios is active are the areas that global streamers have not really gone. So they cut a lot of children's TV and they've cut a lot of very, very high-end dramas. And we are in the premium sector of dramas, but we're not very high end. So Fool Me Once is a brilliant example on Netflix, Quay Street [indiscernible] brilliant producer, recent talent deals for us. It's in the top 10 of all Netflix shows ever last year. So absolutely, that kind of drama is a premium drama, but it's not a Lords of the Rings or anything remotely like that. So that's one thing. And then the second thing is that unscripted is an area which is growing from the streamers, and we are obviously leaders in production in unscripted. So just to give you an example. In 2021, we were taking about GBP 50 million on unscripted, and that has gone up 250% from the streamers. So we are in a market where they are commissioning more unscripted content, and we are obviously the place where Squid Games is a great example. There's just a whole range of examples of -- like Love Island Games is another example of unscripted shows that are being commissioned by global streamers. And I think the third thing is content licensing, where we're very, very strong. So we're seeing really big growth, 10% growth in that market where the overall market is only growing about 4%. So that's just to give you an example of the content market as a whole or an illustration of what's going on in the Studio content market.

And then Julien, I think you were asking about Q1 TAR being up 3%. We don't think where we know that the monthly trends really aren't indicative of anything in terms of trend. So we're sticking to quarterly guidance on that because the monthly numbers just bounce around so much with sports events and so on.

And then the last question was on [indiscernible].

Yes. The second question was around Amazon [ movement ] costs, if I heard you rightly. So obviously, we've guided the -- you should have the existing cost program in your numbers. We've guided a GBP 30 million of additional in-year benefit from the strategic program that we talked about. And broadly speaking, I think your noncontent, I think consensus was somewhere around the 600 market will definitely be less than that next year, probably GBP 10 million to GBP 15 million less than that depending on...

We have no further questions. I'll hand the call back to Carolyn McCall for any concluding remarks.

Great. Just to thank you all very much for being with us today, and we'll see you all soon. Thanks a lot. Bye.

This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your lines.