ITV said that advertising would grow for the first time in 18 months as retailers vied to promote Christmas offers alongside The X Factor.

The commercial broadcaster said that it expected bookings to be 4 per cent ahead in December, the first month that revenues had shown an annual improvement since June last year. John Cresswell, ITV chief operating officer, said that the broadcaster had “brought forward” a Christmas trading announcement of its figures because of a “significant improvement” since October.

ITV said that its advertising revenues — 82 per cent of turnover — fell 12 per cent in the first nine months of the year to £1.05 billion, but the rate of decline was 3 per cent in October and 1 per cent in November.

However, Mr Cresswell refused to “call the bottom”, saying that it was not clear whether the recovery — sustained largely by an upturn in advertising by retailers — could continue into the new year.

He noted that ITV would benefit from “weak comparables”. Advertising was down 15 per cent in both December 2008 and the first three months of 2009, making it relatively easy for the broadcaster to produce growth in the early part of next year.

Underlining ITV’s confidence was its decision yesterday to re-sign Ant and Dec for another two years, in a deal that will pay the Geordie duo about £5 million a year each to carry on presenting I’m a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!, Britain’s Got Talent and Saturday Night Takeaway.

Although the presenters will take a “modest pay cut”, according to ITV insiders, their salaries remain among the largest paid in British television, vying only with the sums received by Simon Cowell at ITV and Jonathan Ross from the licence fee-funded BBC.

ITV gave no update about its attempts to recruit a non-executive chairman to replace Michael Grade, other than to formally say the search was continuing. On Wednesday it emerged that Bob Wigley, former Merrill Lynch banker, was in the running.

The shares closed up almost 10 per cent, or 4¼p, to 48¾p.

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