ITV, owner of the UK's biggest commercial TV station, will pay a special dividend of £156 million (€180 million) after profit rose 8.1 per cent in 2012 as it sold more content.

Net income climbed to £267 million from £247 million, the London-based company said in statement today.

Revenue rose 2.6 per cent to £2.2 billion, compared with an average estimate of £2.21 billion pounds from analysts.

The broadcaster, whose shows include Downton Abbey and X Factor, has been reducing its dependence on advertising by investing in content creation and acquiring production assets.

Non-advertising revenue rose 12 per cent last year to more than £1 billion and is expected to gain 5 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, the broadcaster said.

ITV chief executive officer Adam Crozier said "In 2012 we achieved double-digit earnings growth for the third year running, in a broadly flat advertising market.

"We're now building on our healthy creative pipeline with selective acquisitions in key and emerging creative markets."

Revenue at its content-production arm ITV Studios increased by £100 million to £712 million.

ITV proposed a final dividend of 1.8 pence a share, compared with 1.2 pence a year earlier, and a special dividend of 4 pence a share.

The underlying TV advertising market "continues to be broadly flat" and the company remains cautious about the ad market this year, ITV said.

The second quarter will probably be affected by difficult 2012 comparisons from the Euro Championships, it said.

Bloomberg