\n<\/p>\n
\n\tU.K. TV giant\u00a0ITV, which recently struck a content deal with Walt Disney to share content between streaming services Disney+ and ITVX,\u00a0reported first-half 2025 revenue on Thursday, including a 7 percent\u00a0advertising\u00a0revenue drop. That outperformed a bigger decline that had been forecast due to the benefit seen during the same period in 2024 from the men\u2019s Euros soccer tournament, which drove substantial ad revenue. Second-quarter ad revenue fell 12 percent, also less than forecast by management.<\/p>\n
\n\tTotal advertising revenue was up 2 percent for the six-month period when compared to 2023, ITV, led by CEO Carolyn McCall, highlighted in its first-half financial update early in the morning London time.<\/p>\n
\n\tITV Studios posted a revenue increase of 3 percent for the first six months of 2025. The production arm, which has been a much-rumored takeover target for various possible bidders in the industry, had previously said that \u201cwe remain on track to deliver our target of total organic revenue growth of 5 percent on average per annum from 2021 to 2026 \u2013 ahead of the market,\u201d but this year would be weighed more towards the second half of the year.<\/p>\n
\n\tOverall, ITV on Thursday reported that first-half adjusted EBITA\u00a0dropped 31 percent to \u00a3146 million ($198 million), while total revenue was down 1 percent to \u00a31.85 billion ($2.51 billion).<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe are announcing an additional \u00a315 million ($20 million) in permanent non-content cost savings, taking the total group permanent non-content savings in 2025 to \u00a345 million ($61 million),\u201d ITV also announced. \u201cThere will be a one-off cost of \u00a340 million ($54 million) to achieve the total group savings. We expect our total content spend to be around \u00a31.23 billion ($1.67 billion) in 2025, compared to the \u00a31.25 billion ($1.70 billion) previously indicated, as we continue to optimize our content spend to best reflect viewer dynamics. While the economic environment remains uncertain, we now expect a better outturn for the full year 2025, driven by these cost efficiencies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tOn an earnings call, McCall called cost savings an ongoing focus. CFO Chris Kennedy mentioned technology and process efficiencies as drivers of the latest set of cost reductions. \u201cEveryone is really focused on \u2026 rebalancing the cost base\u201d to ensure continued business success.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cITV is now a leaner, more digital business in a strong position to compete and succeed in a changing market,\u201d McCall said. \u201cWe have the agility and capability to make the most of new revenue opportunities while driving profitable growth, strong cash generation and attractive returns to shareholders.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tShe added: \u201cITV Studios continues to see positive momentum, with strong growth in external revenues in the first half, driven by content for the global streaming platforms, including The Devil\u2019s Hour<\/em> for Amazon Prime Video, and Run Away<\/em> for Netflix.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tTotal advertising revenue is expected to be \u201cmarginally down\u201d in the third quarter, \u201ccompared to the same period in 2024, reflecting the tough comparative from the final knockout matches of the Men\u2019s Euros in July 2024,\u201d ITV said in a forecast. \u201cWithin this, we expect continued strong growth in digital advertising revenues.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tITV\u00a0continues to focus on growing a successful production business, McCall said earlier this year\u00a0as she declined to comment on market chatter about a possible merger for ITV Studios. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a really high-quality business. We already have scale, and we\u2019re very diversified,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of speculation, but I think you\u2019d expect that speculation. There\u2019s (also) speculation about Banijay and Fremantle, and there\u2019s speculation about all studios businesses. We won\u2019t comment on any speculation. All we would say is that we will continue to build the business as it has been built. We\u2019ve grown even since 2018 by about 35 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDiscussing industry consolidation, McCall said the consensus, whether in the U.S., the U.K. or Europe, continues to be that there will be more. \u201cWe are holding our own,\u201d she concluded, though.<\/p>\n \n\tAsked about a potential deal on Thursday, McCall said, \u201cWe won\u2019t comment on any speculation,\u201d adding: \u201cIn this sector, everyone is talking to everyone.\u201d Concluded the ITV CEO: \u201cWe are very focused on driving our strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDuring a Thursday call with reporters, McCall discussed the recent Disney streaming partnership. It will be billed as a \u201cTaste of\u00a0ITVX\u201d and a \u201cTaste of\u00a0Disney+\u201d on the companies\u2019 respective platforms. The CEO called it a \u201cpilot\u201d and described it this way amid recent streaming bundling deals: \u201cIt is bundling, but it is much more promotional opportunity.\u201d She also predicted that the deal would be \u201cmutually beneficial,\u201d saying it was not exclusive, meaning that similar agreements could also be struck with other companies.<\/p>\n \n\tAsked about AI, McCall said ITV Studios was using a smart editing tool for the latest season of Love Island<\/em>, which boosted productivity. Dubbing and other areas are also using AI. She said human resources and other departments are also using AI tools where available and where their use makes sense. The CEO said AI is not about cutting jobs but \u201callowing people to do more upstream things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" U.K. TV giant\u00a0ITV, which recently struck a content deal with Walt Disney to share content between streaming services Disney+ and ITVX,\u00a0reported first-half 2025 revenue on Thursday, including a 7 percent\u00a0advertising\u00a0revenue drop. That outperformed a bigger decline that had been forecast due to the benefit seen during the same period in 2024 from the men\u2019s Euros<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[2573,5576,5579,5566,5577,5578],"class_list":{"0":"post-12026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-drops","9":"tag-firsthalf","10":"tag-grows","11":"tag-itv","12":"tag-revenue","13":"tag-studios"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}