Seven years after the UK's biggest commercial free-to-air broadcaster fought for its life after being deserted by viewers and advertisers, ITV said its strength in programming, both as broadcaster and seller, would help insure against any slowdown.

Newspapers in Britain have warned of a slump in advertising in recent months, as companies held off from spending around the EU referendum, and ITV trimmed its own forecast in May.

But the group, which broadcasts "Coronation Street" and "Britain's Got Talent", met first-half forecasts with flat net ad revenue and predicted this would slip around 1 percent in the nine months through September, a better than expected outcome.

Despite the flat ad revenue, earnings (EBITA) rose 10 percent in the first half, driven by a strong performance from its studios business, which sells programming to the ITV channels, to rivals in Britain and broadcasters globally.

The shares rose 8 percent in early trade, regaining some of the ground lost following the June 23 vote to leave the EU and giving a market value of 8 billion pounds ($11 billion). The stock is more than 1,200 percent higher than its 2009 nadir.

"Our strategy of strengthening and rebalancing the business is clearly working and remains the right one for ITV," Chief Executive Adam Crozier said.

After years of turmoil when advertisers moved money online, Crozier said money was starting to come back to TV to reach the huge audiences that tune into big events such as the Euro 2016 soccer championship.

"I think there is a growing understanding of what digital advertising can do, and more importantly, a growing understanding of what digital advertising can't do," he said. "It's a (question of) maturity, where people are starting to realise that different media does different jobs."

Crozier said it was too soon to say what impact the Brexit vote would have on advertising after September and in light of the uncertainty ITV would target cost cuts of 25 million pounds in 2017. He said the programming budget would not be affected.

Analysts said the results should ease concerns ITV would be particularly hit from the Brexit vote if companies lost confidence and held back from advertising.

Crozier said companies had shown caution in February when the government set the date for the referendum, but he had not seen a marked drop since the vote.

($1 = 0.7616 pounds)

(Editing by Sarah Young and David Holmes)

By Kate Holton