Broadcaster ITV said the Rugby World Cup and popular live episodes of Coronation Street and Emmerdale helped improve under-pressure audience figures.
The group, which is home to shows including Downton Abbey and The X Factor, said it narrowed falls in its share of Britain's television audience over the past few months.
Despite the rugby boost and surging viewing figures for its soaps, the group's overall share of the TV audience fell 3% to 21.2% in the 10 months to October 31, although this marked a slight improvement since its half year, when it dropped to its lowest level for at least 15 years, at 21.1%.
But ITV boss Adam Crozier confirmed the group was on track for "another year of double digit profit growth" as revenues continue to rise - up 13% to £2.05 billion in the nine months to September 30 thanks to an ongoing recovery in advertising spend.
ITV remained tight-lipped on speculation that it is buying The Voice UK after the BBC recently said the talent show had been poached by a rival broadcaster.
The BBC said at the weekend that the fifth series starting in January would be the last broadcast on BBC One.
ITV declined to comment.
ITV said the Rugby World Cup was the second most watched rugby tournament since records began after it averaged 3.3 million viewers, with a 23% audience share.
The England v Wales game on September 26 was watched by 10.4 million viewers, peaking at 11.6 million, making it the most watched sporting event of the year and the most watched rugby match since the 2007 world cup final between England and South Africa.
The live episode of Coronation Street to mark ITV's 60th birthday in September was another success for the group, watched by 9.4 million viewers - a 37% audience share.
Mr Crozier said "all parts of the business" had performed well over the first nine months of its financial year, adding that the outlook for 2016 was also "encouraging".
He said: "As we expected, share of viewing has improved in the second half driven by strong performances in daytime, the soaps and the Rugby World Cup, and continuing this trend remains a key focus for the business."
Its broadcast and online revenues rose 7% to £1.53 billion, helped by a 6% rise in net advertising revenues for its ITV channels.
ITV Studios revenues lifted 28%, bolstered by a string of acquisitions such as Talpa Media, maker of The Voice.
The group expects advertising revenues to rise by at least 5% over the full-year.
Shares were nearly 2% ahead after the update.
Roddy Davidson, media analyst at Shore Capital, said: "We are pleased with the continuing momentum evident in this morning's update and are bullish on ITV's unrivalled ability to deliver a large mass market audience to advertisers."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here