ITV has revealed it made a pre-tax profit of £25 million last year, compared to the massive £2.7 billion loss recorded in 2008.

The broadcaster said a series of cost-cutting measures and an increase in its share of the advertising market helped reverse the slump.

While ITV said its advertising revenues for 2009 had dropped by nine per cent, the overall market slipped by some 11 per cent.

Britain's largest commercial broadcaster, however, claimed it expected ad revenues to bounce back, predicting a seven per cent rise for the first quarter of 2010 and as much as 15 to 20 per cent jump in April.

ITV also set the date for when Adam Crozier will take over as chief executive as April 26th.

The Times reports the current chief exec of Royal Mail will receive a package worth £16 million when he joins the broadcaster later this year.

The results released today show ITV's total turnover fell seven per cent to £1.88 billion.

Commenting on the figures ITV's new chairman Archie Norman warned the broadcaster would continue to introduce cost-cutting measures with expected public sector cuts also predicted to harm advertising revenue.

"Whilst there has been a rebound in ad revenue, I don't think we should get carried away by that. We started from a low base last year and we are coming into much tougher comparatives as we go into this year particularly in the fourth quarter," he said.

"Post the general election, we expect to see some cutbacks in public spending that will affect the advertising market and none of us have any idea what will happen to taxes and consumer spending."

Looking to the future, he added though: "Under Adam Crozier's leadership, ITV will set out on the journey to become a very different business over the next five years. ITV's challenge is to reduce its dependence on a free-to-air model threatened by digital media and besieged by legacy regulation."
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