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Television broadcaster ITV reported a fall in revenue as the Covid-19 pandemic hurt demand for advertising in the first quarter of the year and continued into April with advertising down 42% for the month.
The coronavirus crisis had a 'significant' impact on the demand for advertising across most advertising categories, particularly from April which was down 42%, the company warned.
The advertising weakness in April followed a 2% rise in the first quarter.
For the three months to 31 March, total external revenue was down 7% at £694m on-year, with ITV studios revenue down 11% at £342m, broadcast revenue up 2% at £500m and ITV total advertising up 2% as originally guided, with online revenues up 26%
ITV total viewing was up 2% with 'very strong' growth in online viewing up 75%, simulcast viewing up 112% and reach up 40% on the ITV Hub, the company said.
ITV main channel's share of viewing (SOV) was marginally up at 17.9%, its best quarter since 2009 while ITV Family SOV was down 2% at 23.6%, partly impacted by the volume of the BBC's news output, it added.
The company, however, flagged positive impact from Covid-19 as lockdown measures boosted growth for its BritBox free trial starts and subscriptions.
Looking to the rest of the year, ITV pledged to reduce overhead costs by £60m and said it had furloughed around 800 colleagues, broadly 15% of its UK workforce, the majority of whom worked in ITV Studios.
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'The outlook remains uncertain and is changing rapidly and therefore we are not giving guidance for the second quarter or for the remainder of the year,' ITV said.