NetPlay TV has reported an 11 percent growth in revenues for the first half of 2010 but losses have more than doubled after its Bingo Stars product on ITV has failed to meet expectations.

NetPlay entered into an agreement in April with ITV to broadcast the ‘Bingo Stars’ but the new gaming format “did not perform in line with our expectations and has been a major cost to the company,” claimed non -executive chairman of NetPlay, Clive Jones in a statement. He added the first half of the year had been a “challenging time” for the company and that its losses would impact its full year results. The company has invested heavily in investment in an unsuccessful six-month trial of the project.

Revenues are up 21 percent from £9.34m in 2009 to £11.31m for the same period this year. The company briefly entered profitability investment in the terrestrial teleshopping partnership with Channel Five in September 2009. The impact of the investment in the Bingo Stars venture sees the company report a loss before tax of £7.9m from £3.2m for the same period in 2009. The company issued a profit warning in June after the project initially failed to meet the set targets.

CEO Martin Higginson announced that following the termination of Bingo Stars project, the number of employees had been “reduced significantly” and some of the non-core contracts had been “terminated”. He added that NetPlay would renew its focus on its core casino assets. Higginson had claimed in an interview earlier in the year that the company had “taken a big gamble” with its large investments in the ITV project.

“The ITV trial comes to an end during November 2010, and our discussions with ITV are ongoing, as is the restructuring of our business and we will update shareholders on the outcome during the next quarter,” Higginson added.

“We have learnt a lot from this experience and we are using this knowledge to re-focus and expand our core live casino offering and return to sustainable profitability,” the statement concludes.

Total casino revenues were up 73% to £8.81m for the first half of this year compared to £5.07m for the same period in 2009.

NetPlayTV is the UK's largest interactive TV gaming company specialising in the creation of profitable games to create great TV show formats. The company operates a number of other brands, including SuperCasino and ChallengeJackpot, which it acquired from Virgin Media Television earlier this year.