ITV Sets New Cost Cuts, CEO Talks Disney Streaming Deal and Using AI for ‘Love Island' Casting

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6 days ago

U.K. TV giant ITV, which recently struck a content deal with Walt Disney to share content between streaming services Disney+ and ITVX, reported first-half 2025 revenue on Thursday, including a 7 percent advertising revenue drop. That outperformed a bigger decline that had been forecast due to the benefit seen during the same period in 2024 from the men's Euros soccer tournament, which drove substantial ad revenue. Second-quarter ad revenue fell 12 percent, also less than forecast by management.
Total 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.
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ITV 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 'we remain on track to deliver our target of total organic revenue growth of 5 percent on average per annum from 2021 to 2026 – ahead of the market,' but this year would be weighed more towards the second half of the year.
Overall, ITV on Thursday reported that first-half adjusted EBITA dropped 31 percent to £146 million ($198 million), while total revenue was down 1 percent to £1.85 billion ($2.51 billion).
'We are announcing an additional £15 million ($20 million) in permanent non-content cost savings, taking the total group permanent non-content savings in 2025 to £45 million ($61 million),' ITV also announced. 'There will be a one-off cost of £40 million ($54 million) to achieve the total group savings. We expect our total content spend to be around £1.23 billion ($1.67 billion) in 2025, compared to the £1.25 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.'
On 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. 'Everyone is really focused on … rebalancing the cost base' to ensure continued business success.
'ITV is now a leaner, more digital business in a strong position to compete and succeed in a changing market,' McCall said. 'We 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.'
She added: 'ITV 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's Hour for Amazon Prime Video, and Run Away for Netflix.'
Total advertising revenue is expected to be 'marginally down' in the third quarter, 'compared to the same period in 2024, reflecting the tough comparative from the final knockout matches of the Men's Euros in July 2024,' ITV said in a forecast. 'Within this, we expect continued strong growth in digital advertising revenues.'
ITV continues to focus on growing a successful production business, McCall said earlier this year as she declined to comment on market chatter about a possible merger for ITV Studios. 'We've got a really high-quality business. We already have scale, and we're very diversified,' she said. 'There's been a lot of speculation, but I think you'd expect that speculation. There's (also) speculation about Banijay and Fremantle, and there's speculation about all studios businesses. We won't comment on any speculation. All we would say is that we will continue to build the business as it has been built. We've grown even since 2018 by about 35 percent.'
Discussing industry consolidation, McCall said the consensus, whether in the U.S., the U.K. or Europe, continues to be that there will be more. 'We are holding our own,' she concluded, though.
Asked about a potential deal on Thursday, McCall said, 'We won't comment on any speculation,' adding: 'In this sector, everyone is talking to everyone.' Concluded the ITV CEO: 'We are very focused on driving our strategy.'
During a Thursday call with reporters, McCall discussed the recent Disney streaming partnership. It will be billed as a 'Taste of ITVX' and a 'Taste of Disney+' on the companies' respective platforms. The CEO called it a 'pilot' and described it this way amid recent streaming bundling deals: 'It is bundling, but it is much more promotional opportunity.' She also predicted that the deal would be 'mutually beneficial,' saying it was not exclusive, meaning that similar agreements could also be struck with other companies.
Asked about AI, management said human resources, dubbing and other departments are using AI tools where available and where their use makes sense. AI is not about cutting jobs but 'allowing people to do more upstream things,' the CEO said. Added Kennedy: 'It's a tool to augment … creativity, not replace everything. We really want our teams to experiment with AI tools in a safe and transparent way. So we spend a lot of time setting up AI guidelines, governance training … to oversee these cases. There's actually a huge amount of trialing and testing across the business, 200 use cases.'
McCall then mentioned how Love Island has started working with an AI tool as an example of positive use cases. 'We will use AI in any way we can to make what we do more efficient. And a great example of that for me is [how] Studios is using a tool, it's a smart editing system, and it's about speed and quality,' she explained. 'They used it for Love Island casting this year, and the efficiency on that was so amazing. Junior editors' output increased from two to four clips per session, and senior editors' output rose from four to up to eight clips per session, so that productivity gain means that they can go and do other things, which is really, really good.'
On the call, Kevin Lygo, ITV's managing director, media and entertainment, was asked about the firing of MasterChef host Gregg Wallace from the Banijay-produced BBC show, saying ITV is comfortable with its welfare policies. But he encouraged anyone with complaints to come forward as quickly as they can. 'I would encourage anyone who feels belittled or troubled in any way to raise a complaint as soon as they feel they have been badly treated and we can deal with it quickly,' he said. 'Some complaints are historic, and it becomes very difficult to come to a conclusion when people can't remember what happened or someone else has a different view.'
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