Nagging concerns that advertising alongside this summer's football World Cup would be a damp squib are knocked down by free-to-air broadcaster ITV (ITV) in its first quarter trading update.As Liberum analyst Ian Whittaker explains, media buyers had been feeding back to the analyst community that the market might only be up by single digits year-on-year.However, ITV is guiding for national...

The FTSE 100 opens up 17 points at 7,431.95 despite UK inflation remaining stubbornly at 3%.In corporate news, mobile phone network provider Vodafone (VOD) gains 5.1% to 227.05p on revealing its half year to 30 September results. The company's total revenue is down 4.1% to €23.1bn but says this is due to the deconsolidation of its Netherlands operations and currency movements. Its...

Free-to-air broadcaster ITV (ITV) gains 1.1% to 167.8p despite warning of an earnings hit from weaker net advertising revenue (NAR) in its third quarter update.The share price action makes sense in context. The market had already priced in a weak contribution from ads, with ITV stock down some 40% year-to-date.The company says NAR on it channels is down 4% in the third quarter from a flat...

The sell-off in BSkyB (BSY) following news of BT's (BT.A) new TV sports offering adds further appeal to an interesting opportunity while the sub-sector's other major component, ITV (ITV), looks vulnerable as it trades near its highs of 2004.Further monetary loosening from the European Central Bank (ECB), which earlier this month (2 May) cut eurozone base rates from 0.75% to 0.5%, has injected...

Free-to-air (FTA) broadcaster ITV (ITV) is a perfect example of why it is better to make your stock selections before results are published and not on the day. The FTSE 100 company is down 2.6% to 117.1p despite revealing forecast-busting preliminary numbers and a special dividend on top.Make no mistake, the £4.7 billion cap operates in a tough market with its core net advertising revenue...