ITV plans to slash its programming budget as new figures showed that spend on the production of films and prestige TV shows in the UK was down more than £2bn over the last year.
The broadcaster plans to make £30m in “temporary” savings, including £25m in content and £5m elsewhere in the business.
The announcement by ITV, which has agreed to sell its television and streaming business to Sky, came amid a backdrop of ditched commissions, falling advertising sales and job reductions in the TV and streaming industry.
The Love Island and I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! broadcaster said it expected ad revenues to fall between 5% and 10% in the crucial final quarter of the year, despite the typically busy Christmas season. Ad sales are expected to drop between 2% and 3% over the course of the full year, ITV said.
ITV’s programming cuts will mostly affect small external commissions, pushing them into 2027, it is understood.
Separately, the latest update from the British Film Institute (BFI) showed that spending in the UK on making film and high-end TV shows – those that cost at least £1m an episode – had plunged by £2.08bn year on year.
The figures showed that £5.2bn was spent by domestic and international broadcasters, Hollywood studios and streamers in the year to the end of September.
This was a 28% decrease on the £7.26bn spent in the same period in 2025, a record year that included productions such as Avengers: Doomsday, Spider-Man: Brand New Day and the first instalment of the Harry Potter TV series.
A spokesperson for the BFI said: “The figures are the result of a complex picture, ranging from significant shifts in the global industrial context through to increased competitiveness [for productions] from other international territories, and set against a backdrop of a strong [2025]. This is obviously something we and the British Film Commission are looking at very closely.”
The latest figures are classified as “first reported”, with the BFI typically significantly revising up spending levels as it receives more information over the coming months. The BFI said the final figures for 2025 was revised up £900m from their “first reported” level.
However, with the latest provisional figures showing a more than £2bn plunge in investment, 2026 is on track to be a dismal year for the UK production industry.
Carolyn McCall, ITV’s chief executive, said demand for ads had weakened because of “continuing broader macroeconomic uncertainty” and “increased digital advertising on global streaming platforms”. She also cited new rules this year that imposed a 9pm watershed on TV advertising for less healthy food.
Shares in ITV, which are listed on London’s FTSE 250 index, dropped almost 4% in trading on Wednesday. It has lost about a fifth of its market value since the start of the year.
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The business has struggled in recent years to keep up with deep-pocketed streaming companies such as Netflix and YouTube, which have muscled in on traditional media’s audiences and commercial revenue.
Other mainstream broadcasters are also struggling, with the BBC intending to shed as many as 2,000 jobs and Channel 4 planning layoffs. ITV indicated the proposed cost savings would not involve staff cuts.
McCall has argued that the £1.6bn sale of its TV and streaming business to Sky is ITV’s route to survival.
However, 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 it was still expected to complete in the second half of 2027.
The sale will leave ITV with its studios business, which makes shows for ITV and other broadcasters and streamers. The company told investors that studios revenue was down 1% in the first nine months of the year, but it had made five of the UK’s top 10 most-watched dramas in the third quarter of 2026, including The Gentlemen for Netflix and The Blame for ITV.
