ITV boss will "compete where I can win"

But it would be unfair to pin ITV’s solid set of interim results purely on England’s stoic efforts in Russia. Ad revenues actually contributed a smaller proportion to the group’s top line than they ever have before, and revenue growth was instead driven by a 16 per cent leap in studio sales to £803m. ITV created over 4,000 hours of original content in the first six months of the year and is now Britain’s largest commercial producer.

That all feeds nicely into chief executive Carolyn McCall’s new strategy to make ITV “more than TV”. Over the next three years, management will invest £60m in home-grown content, the broadcasting business and a new direct-to-consumer service, which will host ITV’s immense catalogue of shows. True, this new offering may send the group headlong into competition with US streaming giant Netflix, but Ms McCall still thinks there is a huge opportunity for growth, particularly for a trusted company that boasts a strong catalogue of popular recurring shows.

Income investors needn’t fear that this period of spending will come at a cost to the dividend. Management has promised to return at least 8p per share in both 2018 and 2019 and has reassured that the group will continue to be cash-generative. The net cost of the strategy is in fact only expected to be £20m-£25m, thanks to a tight savings programme.

But benefits from this “refresh” are not expected for a couple of years, so broker Numis has maintained its pre-tax profit and earnings per share (EPS) forecasts of £775m and 15.5p for the year to December 2018 (£800m and 16p in 2017) – as profit growth has been hampered by increased scheduling costs. But over the longer term, ITV is confident that double-digit revenue growth will continue in its online business, that studios margins will expand to 16 per cent and that the direct-to-consumer service can generate £100m of revenues by 2021.