{"id":8014,"date":"2019-02-28T13:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T13:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/stv-boss-focused-on-staying-independent\/"},"modified":"2019-02-28T13:00:22","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T13:00:22","slug":"stv-boss-focused-on-staying-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/stv-boss-focused-on-staying-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"STV boss ‘focused’ on staying independent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"SimonImage copyright<\/span>
\n ITV<\/span><\/p>\n

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Image caption<\/span>
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\n Simon Pitts spent 17 years at ITV before taking over at STV
\n <\/span>
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The boss of STV has declined to rule out a sale of the commercial broadcaster, amid continued speculation it might become part of ITV.<\/p>\n

Simon Pitts said “you can never rule in or rule out anything” but insisted he was focused on growing as an independent channel.<\/p>\n

It came as STV revealed an 86% drop in bottom line pre-tax profits for 2018 compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n

The broadcaster said much of that was down to one-off restructuring costs.<\/p>\n

STV is the only channel three business not owned by ITV.<\/p>\n

Its biggest shareholder is the Guernsey-based investment fund Crystal Amber, which had also invested in Northern Irish broadcaster UTV before its sale to ITV.<\/p>\n

Mr Pitts, a former ITV executive, told BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland programme<\/a>: “We’ve set out a clear and ambitious growth plan which shows we can be a successful – and yes independent – business.<\/p>\n

“It involves investing in programming, investing in digital and investing in our people to build an exciting future in STV – and that is my sole focus.”<\/p>\n

‘Ambitious growth plan’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Asked if he would rule out the sale of STV, Mr Pitts added: “You can never rule in or rule anything out, but we’ve set an ambitious growth plan in train.<\/p>\n

“We’re starting to really deliver on it and it involves investing right across the board for in independent future for STV.”<\/p>\n

STV’s statutory pre-tax profit for 2018 was \u00a31.9m compared to \u00a313.9m the previous year, although the figure would have been \u00a319m after stripping out one-off costs.<\/p>\n

Last year STV closed its loss-making digital channel STV2.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, STV said revenue increased by 8% to \u00a3125.9m in 2018.<\/p>\n

Mr Pitts added that STV-made drama The Victim, starring Kelly Macdonald, was about to start on BBC One.<\/p>\n

In the week that BBC Scotland’s new digital channel went on air, he added: “Anything that leads to more TV series being made in Scotland is a good thing, and we’re actually already working together on shows that STV is making for the new channel.<\/p>\n

“These days there’s a lot more that unites old rivals like STV and the BBC than divides us. <\/p>\n

“In terms of the ratings and the impact on STV, we’re really not worried.”<\/p>\n

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For the latest business news as it happens, follow BBC presenter Andrew Black’s updates each weekday morning on BBC Radio Scotland’s <\/strong>Good Morning Scotland<\/a> programme between 0600 and 0900.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Source<\/a> by [author_name]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright ITV Image caption Simon Pitts spent 17 years at ITV before taking over at STV The boss of STV has declined to rule out a sale of the commercial broadcaster, amid continued speculation it might become part of ITV. Simon Pitts said “you can never rule in or rule out anything” but insisted … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}