ITV to cut £30m in costs as advertising revenue falls 8%

ITV is cutting a further £30 million in costs by the end of the year after warning of a worsening advertising market.

The broadcaster said total advertising revenues fell 8% in the three months to the end of September, as demand had “weakened”. It warned they may decline by as much as 10% in the last three months of the year.

ITV, the broadcaster behind I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here!, said it now anticipates total ad revenues falling 2% to 3% for the full year. It blamed global economic uncertainty, competition from streaming rivals and the restrictions on TV and online junk food advertising introduced last year.

The cuts will be made in its media and entertainment division. About £25 million will be content savings, including pushing some programming back into next year, with a further £5 million from “discretionary non-content savings” across the business. ITV confirmed jobs would not be affected.

Dame Carolyn McCall, ITV’s chief executive, said the group was taking “decisive action” to offset the weaker market.

“Demand for advertising in the second half has weakened. This is due to continuing broader macroeconomic uncertainty, increased digital advertising on global streaming platforms and the impact of less healthy food regulations which came into effect on October 1 2025,” she said.

“We are taking decisive action, aligning our investment with advertiser demand to deliver additional temporary content and discretionary non-content cost savings in the fourth quarter.”

She added: “While the outlook for advertising remains muted, we are firmly focused on self-help and mitigating actions.”

Sky deal under scrutiny

In July ITV agreed a £1.6 billion deal to sell its media and entertainment arm to Sky. This week it said the deal was “progressing as normal”, even though Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice. That allows the Competition and Markets Authority and Ofcom to examine the takeover and report back to her in January.

Duncan Ferris, analyst at the online trading platform Freetrade, said: “The World Cup helped pull in record online viewership for ITV, but weak advertising performance continues to foul the picture.

“Ad revenue deterioration was greater than warned, with weakness over the summer months erasing H1 growth and perhaps exemplifying why ITV is so keen to offload its TV channels to reduce exposure to the weak TV ad market. Advertisers’ budgets are being squeezed by macro factors, and their attention is increasingly shifting to digital platforms, creating a challenging environment for linear telly.”

He added: “ITV might have magicked up £30m of identified temporary cost savings in mitigation, but further advertising woe is likely an indication the company cannot be shot of its media and entertainment arm soon enough.”

Ferris said ITV’s continued expectation that the sale, worth up to £1.6bn, will complete in the second half of 2027 was “a positive sign”. But he pointed out that advertising will still matter even if the deal goes through, because “£200m of the total sale consideration is dependent on 2027 ad performance.”

On ITV Studios, he said its full-year outlook “remains intact despite a revenue dip”. Its performance is heavily weighted to the last quarter, but Studios has already secured a larger share of annual revenue than at the same point last year, which he said will help keep shareholders onside if the sale goes ahead.