Moody's rates ITV Baa3, ups debt

Moody's Investors Service said it upgraded the ratings on all of the senior unsecured debt of ITV plc to Baa3 from Ba1.

Concurrently, Moody's assigned a long-term senior unsecured issuer rating of Baa3 to the company.

The outlook is stable.

The agency also withdrew ITV's Ba1 corporate family rating and Ba1-PD probability of default rating in line with the policy for credits that transition to investment grade from speculative grade.

"We have upgraded ITV's rating to Baa3 primarily because the company has continued to successfully increase its total non-net advertising related revenues, by 23% since 2012, as a proportion of its total external revenues, while also reducing its leverage," Moody's lead analyst for ITV Christian Azzi said in a news release.

"The upgrade also reflects our expectation that ITV's high-quality content will continue to support the company's share of advertising and share of viewing, and that the latter, as well as the company's share of commercial impact, is likely to stabilize in 2013 and increase in 2014," Azzi added in the release.

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