ITV plans to cut £25m from its programming budget as part of £30m in “temporary” savings, with the remaining £5m coming from elsewhere in the business, the broadcaster said, as new figures showed UK spending on film and high-end television production has fallen by more than £2bn in a year.
The company, which has agreed to sell its television and streaming business to Sky for £1.6bn, said it expected advertising revenue to fall by between 5% and 10% in the final quarter of the year, despite the typically busy Christmas period. Full-year ad sales are expected to be down 2% to 3%.
The programming reductions are expected to fall mainly on small external commissions, which would be pushed into 2027. ITV indicated the savings would not involve staff cuts.
The Love Island and I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! broadcaster is cutting costs against a backdrop of ditched commissions, falling advertising sales and job reductions across the TV and streaming industry.
Production spending falls by more than £2bn
Separate figures from the British Film Institute showed that UK spending on making films and high-end TV shows – defined as those costing at least £1m an episode – fell by £2.08bn year on year.
Domestic and international broadcasters, Hollywood studios and streamers spent £5.2bn in the year to the end of September, compared with the £7.26bn recorded in the same period of 2025. That year was a record, buoyed by productions including Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and the first instalment of the Harry Potter television series.
A BFI spokesperson attributed the figures to a combination of shifts in the global industry, stronger competition from other production locations and the high comparison base in 2025. The BFI and the British Film Commission were examining those pressures closely.
The latest numbers are classified as “first reported”, and the BFI typically revises spending levels up significantly as more information arrives in the following months. The final figures for 2025 were revised up by £900m from their first reported level. Even so, with the provisional figures showing a decline of more than £2bn, 2026 is on course to be a poor year for the UK production industry.
Advertising pressure and the Sky deal
ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall attributed weaker advertising demand to macroeconomic uncertainty and the expansion of advertising on global streaming services. She also cited rules introduced this year that restricted television advertising for less healthy food before 9pm.
Shares in ITV, which is listed on London’s FTSE 250, fell almost 4% in trading on Wednesday and have lost about a fifth of their market value since the start of the year.
The business has struggled in recent years to keep pace with deep-pocketed streaming companies such as Netflix and YouTube, which have taken audiences and commercial revenue from traditional media. Other mainstream broadcasters are also under strain: the BBC intends to shed as many as 2,000 jobs, and Channel 4 is planning layoffs.
McCall has argued that the £1.6bn sale of ITV’s television and streaming business to Sky is the company’s route to survival. Last week the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, issued a public interest intervention notice, triggering an investigation by the media regulator Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority. Nandy raised concerns that the combined broadcasters would account for about 86% of linear news and current affairs viewing in Britain, as well as concerns over potential US political influence on editorial independence. Sky is owned by the US broadcaster Comcast.
ITV said on Wednesday that the deal was “progressing as planned” and was still expected to complete in the second half of 2027.
The sale would leave ITV with its studios business, which makes shows for ITV and for other broadcasters and streamers. The company told investors that studios revenue was down 1% in the first nine months of the year, but that it had made five of the UK’s 10 most-watched dramas in the third quarter of 2026, including The Gentlemen for Netflix and The Blame for ITV.