It wasn’t the size of ITV’s election night audience figures that pushed shares in the blue-chip commercial broadcaster sharply higher last Friday. Stock market investors concluded, perhaps understandably, that an 80-seat majority for the Conservatives would usher in a period of political and economic certainty and release potentially billions in pent-up business investment.
In the case of ITV, whose shares gained 5.8 per cent during the day’s post-election bounce, dealers extrapolated that it would mean the advertisers who had sat nervously on the sidelines for the past several years would now start to return.
The euphoria may have been tempered when Boris Johnson moved to rule out requesting a Brexit extension. Yet the sentiment, and the latent optimism, remain.
ITV was created in all but