ITV, Britain's largest free-to-air commercial broadcaster, said it expected demand for advertising to bounce back strongly this summer after it suffered from having no Olympics coverage a year ago.
Chief executive Adam Crozier said his talks with advertisers indicated that they were becoming more confident about spending.
The company posted a better-than-expected 16% rise in first-half profit, year-on-year, as its production business offset weaker ad demand.
Income from advertising across its channels, which feature shows such as "Coronation Street" and "Broadchurch", fell by an expected 3% in the six month period, the broadcaster said, but was coming back strongly.
It was expected to rise 12% in July, 20% in August and to be flat in September, compared with the same months in 2012, which would produce a broadly flat first nine months of the year, ITV said.
Crozier said last year advertising was affected by the coverage of major sporting events. ITV showed the Euro 2012 soccer tournament last June, but had no coverage of the London Olympics in July and August. "This year is a mirror issue of last year," he said.
"Last year because of the Euros and the Olympics people brought advertising out of July and August into June, and this year it shifted back the other way."
He said telecoms group BT was stepping up promotion around the launch of its sports channel, while its competitor pay-TV company BSkyB was also increasing advertising.
Supermarkets, carmakers and the government were also spending more, he said. ITV has been building its production business, both by making more programmes for its own channels and other broadcasters, and by acquisitions in Britain and abroad.
Revenues in its production arm, which makes dramas such as "Mr Selfridge" and "The Psychopath Next Door", rose 11% to £395m sterling, out of a overall company total of £1.3 billion, while earnings from the unit increased 26% to £63m.
Crozier shrugged off the impact of the merger between major ads groups Publicis and Omnicom on ITV, announced at the weekend. "The media buying side is pretty consolidated anyway," he said. "We are perfectly capable given our of scale of handling ourselves in that market."
ITV reported first-half adjusted pretax profit of £270m, up 16%, on revenue up 2% to £1.3 billion - better expected.
