ITV shares rise as Omnicom pulls ad spend at Channel 5

12th Jun 2014 12:10

ITV's share price was rising strongly on Thursday following reports that it could benefit from a move by US media giant Omnicom to halt further spend on advertising with broadcasting peer Channel 5.According to MediaWeek, Omnicom's media trading arm Opera has stopped all media spend with Channel 5 until the end of the year and will redirect activity to ITV instead.The report said that the ad spend in question totals £30m.Speaking to MediaWeek, a spokesperson said: "Channel 5 can confirm that no bookings have been received from Opera on behalf of its clients for July until the end of the year. This is a private matter between Channel 5, Opera and its clients and no further comment will be made at this time."The move follows the recent sale of Channel 5 by media tycoon Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell to Viacom, which is still awaiting the approval from European regulators.ITV was trading nearly 3% higher at 181.7p by 13:02.Comments from analysts at Liberum could have also been behind the share-price rise after they cited feedback from media buyers that suggests that ad revenues at ITV1 could be stronger than expected."Media buyer feedback suggests that ITV1 (greater than 75% of ITV's total ad revenues) is seeing June TV advertising revenues up +24% year-on-year, which is much stronger than ITV's guidance of 15%-20% for June as a whole," the broker said.BC