ITV expects summer advertising surge ITV said it expected a surge in advertising revenues this summer on the back of campaigns around the Queen's diamond jubilee and the Euro 2012 football championship. The UK's largest free-to-air commercial broadcaster by turnover on Wednesday said it expected television ad revenues to rise 6 per cent in May, and by 12-17 per cent in June and 3 per cent overall for the first half. The upbeat outlook came as the company reported a 1 per cent year-on-year drop in TV advertising revenues in the first quarter to £362m. However, the broadcaster reported non-advertising revenues up 13 per cent in the three months to March 31, driven by an increase in production income, sponsorship, and pay-TV turnover. Adam Crozier, chief executive, is heading a five-year plan to reduce ITV's reliance on advertising in the face of competition from areas such as online news and internet-based television. The broadcaster on Wednesday said that the number of views of programmes through on-demand platforms and over the internet rose by almost a quarter year on year to 110m. Revenues from ITV Studios rose 60 per cent to £290m, which the broadcaster attributed to the success of several shows in 2012 including Titanic, the four-part television miniseries period drama produced by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes. ITV Studios" figures were also flattered by the inclusion of revenues from ITV's breakfast show Daybreak, whose production was transferred in-house. Steve Liechti, analyst at Investec, upgraded his full-year earnings per share expectations by 4.5 per cent on the back of ITV's first-quarter figures. The figures pushed up ITV shares 3.2 per cent, or 2.55p, to 83.3p.