ATV financial results: 1976
Lord Grade on Associated Television Corporation’s 1976 results
“The Company’s present position and prospects are both excellent”
- The improvement in the Group profit before taxation to £6,626,000 [£42.4m in today’s money allowing for inflation – Ed] is attributable to the greatly improved results achieved by the Film Division and the economic recovery which has taken place within Independent Television. Earnings per ‘A’ Stock Unit were 7.56p [48.47p] and the total dividend is 4.3p [27.56p].
- Strict internal economies were introduced at ATV Network in every field, except that of direct expenditure on programmes. These measures, combined with an intensive drive by the Network’s admirably-directed Sales Department and an upturn in the national expenditure on television advertising, succeeded in producing a profit of £2,409,000 [£15.4m].
- Our most important recent development has been the formation of a new Anglo-American company, Associated General Films, which will serve to consolidate our position as a major force in the international film industry.
- Profits from investment in a greatly expanded programme of film production – £1,139,000 [£7.3m] against £337,000 [£2.2m] – have exceeded our expectations and I can confirm that really substantial earnings will accrue this year.
- Music Publishing continues to be a major contributor to earnings and Pye Records finished the year in spectacular style by winning the Eurovision song contest.
- In a year generally regarded as a difficult one for the theatre, Stoll-Moss has succeeded in coming forward with improved results.
- Our property company now owns some 1.8 million sq. ft. of lettable space and we have let twenty-four of the twenty-seven floors in the ATV tower block in Birmingham.
- Our policy of diversification has once more fully justified itself.
Copies of the Report and Accounts for the year to 28 March 1976 are available from the Secretary, Associated Television Corporation Limited, ATV House, 17 Great Cumberland Place, London W1A 1AG.
This illustration depicts some of ATV Corporation’s interests. In addition to the seven day-a-week television franchise for the Midlands, group activities include film making, theatres, record, tape and music publishing companies, and the manufacture and supply of telephone answering equipment. The Group’s prestige tower block in Birmingham – the ATV Centre – is also shown.
Transdiffusion analysis
Lew Grade is distracted. There’s a general feeling that he’s no longer really interested in ATV Network, the corporation’s ITV franchise. Instead, just as previous chairmen had worried would happen, he starting to see it simply as a pot of cash that he can dip into in order to fund his latest plan: becoming a movie mogul.
It’s working. The film-making business, grouped under the ITC banner, requires a lot of cash up front to fund. But when it works, it really works, raking in a fortune. But it only takes one expensive flop to ruin a movie studio, which can’t repeat and/or cancel and write-off a dud in the way a television company with a poorly performing series can. As long as ITC’s cheap-n-cheerful movies continue to make money, mostly by being sold to the US networks rather than at the cinema, and particularly continue to be cheap, then all will be well.
| Group Results at a Glance | £’000 | £’000 | £m + inflation | £m + inflation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year to 28 March | 1976 | 1975 | 1976 | 1975 |
| Turnover | 69,215 | 54,851 | 443,668 | 351,595 |
| Profit before Taxation | 6,626 | 7,268 | 42,473 | 46,588 |
| Taxation | 3,418 | 3,616 | 21,909 | 23,179 |
| Profit after Taxation | 3,208 | 2,736 | 20,563 | 17,538 |
| Shareholders’ Funds | 38,962 | 35,022 | 249,746 | 224,491 |
| Profit Retained | 1,151 | 1,462 | 7,378 | 9,371 |
| Earnings per Share | 7.56p | 6.5p | 48.46p | 41.67p |
| Dividend per ‘A’ Ordinary Unit | 4.3p | 3.9p | 27.56p | 25.00p |
About the author
As a public company with shareholders, ATV was required to publish a detailed Annual Report at the end of each financial year. It was common to also publish a Chairman's Statement, summing up the report in more readable language.
