ITN has reported a fifth consecutive year of operating profit growth, up 16% to £5.76m in 2014, a year in which the news producer saw its pension deficit balloon to £100m.
The news and multimedia company, which produces bulletins for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, reported that group revenues rose by 6% to £112m.
The company’s strong performance resulted in chief executive John Hardie pocketing £762,000 in total remuneration, an annual increase of 5.2%, including a £350,000 bonus.
On a pre-tax basis the company’s profits fell 24% to £5m, however this was due to exceptional items being included in 2013 and not to do with underlying performance.
In 2013 ITN received a boost from the sale of its stake in digital education company Espresso Group as well as a £2.8m one-off gain relating to a benefit pension scheme settlement.
ITN credited much of its strong performance – the company’s fifth successive operating profit boost since its annus horbilis in 2009 – to ITN Productions.
The division, which makes programmes including BBC2’s Young Vets, Channel 4’s Dispatches and The Agenda for ITV, boosted revenues by 44% year-on-year to £16.7m.
ITN Productions, which boosted staff numbers by a third last year, increased the number of series produced from four to 10 year on year.
The division also made 37 commercials last year, a 37% increase, for a range of clients including Cadbury, Barlcays and the award-winning Lego takeover which saw a range of brands have their ads transformed into versions made of the iconic brick building blocks.
“Just four years after the division was formed, ITN Productions has become key to ITN’s profit and integral to its future growth,” said Hardie.
Hardie added that ITN has reached its overall profit targets a year ahead of target.
The only thorn in ITN’s year was a 22.5% increase in the company’s pension deficit from £80.4m to £98.5m.
It was a ballooning pension deficit that put ITN, and numerous other media companies, in a parlous state during the recession of the late noughties.
However ITN says that surge in the deficit, whic it attributes to factors including a reduction in the expected returns on assets and bonds, is nothing to be worried about given the strong performance of the company.
Chairman Andrew Garard said that the level of operating profits (£5.8m) have exceeded the £5.2m a year that ITN has agreed it will pay as part of its pension funding obligations.
“The board remains confident that management has built the necessary financial foundation for long-term sustainable growth,” he said.
ITN spent £49m on staff wages and salaries for its 711 staff.
ITN is owned by ITV (40%), DMGT (20%), Thomson Reuters (20%) and UBM (20%).
