I picked up some stock in ITV the other day when it was at around 112p, and today after the axing of the Jeremy Kyle show (finallyā¦!) it might fall even lower. I am hoping that with a continued producition of quality drama (plus Love Island obvs) and the launch of Britbox in partnership with the BBC that ITVs share will rise once again. It also seems that ITV is trying to shift itās income away from what it canāt control (advertisement) towards what it can (producing quality programmes for the wider market). Plus itās current dividend yield is pretty tasty (around 7%).
What does the Freetrade community think about ITVās prospects?
The price is under Ā£2 at the moment, I think it will continue to drop and then you will see it increasing again. Iāve been contemplating investing into it over the past few weeks but not 100% committed at the moment.
Absolutely - I think the impact of reality TV on itās ācontestantāsā mental health is coming to the fore very rapidly. It will definitely have ramification on ITV and television at large.
I havenāt invested in ITV myself, I try to stick to investments I have some more background in.
A glance at the fundamentals though shows itās an interesting pickup.
They seem to be beating expectations, have a fairly average bank balance for what they do, and they seem to be pretty cheap from a value perspective.
However it does feel a little bit of a value trap right now. But Iāll add it to my watch list, I donāt have any UK media directly so might be worth me investigating more.
I bought some shares awhile back off back of rumours of digital tv streaming service (britbox). Currently -14.8% but Iām optimistic the share price will pick up. In the meantime the dividend % is pretty good.
Does anyone have any good ideas of other companies to compare ITVās fundamentals with? They have an all time low P/E at the moment, but I canāt think of another remotely similar company to compare ITV to.
Ah yeah good ideas! I did a brief comparision with TV Francaise 1 and (although Iām no expert ) their financials look remarkably similar except for ITV being a bigger company. Both sitting around a similar P/E, although ITVās yield is substantially higher for better or worseā¦!
Do they have a policy on Dividends? is it linked to earning or free cash flow or something? looking at dividend history it goes up and down, they donāt have a long history of steady or increasing dividends
Edit: I think in many cases linking the dividend to how well the company is actually doing rather than just churning out the same % every year is a good thing, just wondering if they have a written policy they are sticking to
A media company whose valuation has ranged from 6x-8x EV/EBITDA for the past 12 months, compared to its trailing 10-year average of 12x.
I looked up ITVās EV/EBITDA ratio and it is currently around 7.5. Over the last 13 years itās median score was 11.05 and for 2014-2017 the value was always above 11.
No problem. I am not sure what to make of it. On the one hand ITV does incredibly well with Ben Grahamās value rules as @Gordon pointed out, but also runs the risk of being too good to be true.
Ultimately I guess it comes down to where we think ITV will be in the future. I certainly canāt see it going anywhere as a broadcaster and studio, I suppose what is likely to change is the relationship between traditional television and streaming services. How well ITV competes on that front (and how well it monetises its streaming) is likely to be the decider in my opinion.
I too was taking a close look at ITV for my high-yield portfolio. Unfortunately, weāre not blessed with options for the media sector in the UK.
In the end, I went with Relx instead. The dividendās not the best but I prefer its business and I already have some exposure to TV through BT. Itās looking like one of my better decisions so far, Iām up about 12.5% albeit only over six months or so.
Itās hard to put my finger on what puts me off ITV. I suppose the fact that I donāt watch any terrestrial TVās a big part of it. Iām pretty sceptical about āBritboxā too.
) their financials look remarkably similar except for ITV being a bigger company. Both sitting around a similar P/E, although ITVās yield is substantially higher for better or worseā¦!