ITV: turning around - FT.com Adam Crozier likes a challenge. He ran the accident-prone English Football Association (now there's a thankless job) from 2000 to 2002. Then he tried to drag Royal Mail into the 21st century (bypassing the 20th). His arrival at ITV as chief executive nearly two years ago fitted the pattern: turning around a media dinosaur that had a history of never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. If the 2011 results are a guide, his turnround is working. True, the UK's largest free-to-air broadcaster by turnover still looks excessively dependent on advertising revenue, the scarcest commodity in the media. More than 60 per cent of ITV's group revenue of £2.1bn in 2011 was from advertising. The good news is that this is down from over 70 per cent in 2010; the better news is that non-advertising revenue, such as from selling its studio productions to clients other than ITV itself, is rising at a faster pace than advertising revenue - 11 per cent compared with 1 per cent. ITV has a way to go on this front - its online offering is still meagre with revenues of just £34m. That is a fifth more than in the previous year, but still not even 2 per cent of group revenue. With net advertising revenue being squeezed, that needs to grow. Mr Crozier has nearly eliminated debt at ITV, turned in a 23 per cent rise in adjusted earnings per share for 2011, and restarted dividend payments. That explains why the shares, trading at roughly the same multiple as British Sky Broadcasting, are up 27 per cent this year. His transition at ITV, two years into a five-year turnround plan, is in its early stages. Mr Crozier has a knack for identifying an organisation's key problem: an obsession with tradition at the FA, or out-of-date work practices at Royal Mail. The trouble is that he did not hang around at either for long enough to fully address the problems. That remains the risk in his tenure at ITV.