ITV reports 29% growth in streaming hours as advertising demand weakens

ITV plc (LON:ITV) has announced its Q3 Trading Update for the nine months to 30 September 2026

Carolyn McCall, ITV Chief Executive, said:     

“Despite a more challenging market, we remain on track to deliver good revenue growth in ITV Studios and continued profitable digital revenue growth in Media & Entertainment (M&E) over the full year.

“ITV Studios’ performance for the first nine months, with total revenue down 1%, was in line with our expectations. As previously guided, production deliveries and licensing deals are heavily weighted to Q4 this year and despite this, we have a greater proportion of our full year Studios revenue secured than at this point last year.

“In M&E, ITVX maintained good momentum following the Football World Cup. Total streaming hours increased 29% and digital revenues grew 7% over the nine months. Demand for advertising in H2 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 1 October 2025. We are taking decisive action, aligning our investment with advertiser demand to deliver additional temporary content and discretionary non-content cost savings in Q4.

“The agreed sale of our M&E business to Sky, which will position ITV Studios as a highly attractive, pure play, global content business, is progressing as planned. On 4 November, the Secretary of State issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN). This is an expected and important milestone in the regulatory review process, and we are pleased that it is moving at pace. We continue to expect completion in the second half of 2027.

“While the outlook for advertising remains muted, we are firmly focused on self help and mitigating actions, while continuing to execute our strategic priorities to drive performance across both businesses.”

Highlights for the nine months to 30 September 2026

Total Group revenue was down 1% and Group external revenue was down 2% year on year.

ITV Studios total revenue declined 1%. Within this, internal revenue grew 4%, driven by the delivery of new and returning scripted and unscripted programmes for ITV M&E which offset the revenue impact from the previously announced scheduling changes to the Soaps and Daytime production. External revenue declined 4%, reflecting the expected phasing of production deliveries and licensing deals, which are heavily weighted to Q4. ITV Studios continued to deliver strong growth in distribution revenues, driven by the effective monetisation of its unique and valuable content library. Demonstrating our creative strength, ITV Studios produced five of the UK’s top ten most-watched dramas in Q3, this included The Gentlemen for Netflix, Ludwig S2 and Vigil S3 for the BBC, alongside The Blame (the most watched drama of the year so far) and The Dark for ITV.

M&E total revenue declined 1%, with 7% growth in digital revenue offset by the decline in linear advertising. Digital advertising revenue grew 6% with continued momentum on ITVX, which delivered record viewing during the period – driven by the final matches of the Football World Cup, alongside drama and entertainment titles such as Trigger Point, Big Brother and Love Island. So far this year, eight of the ten most-watched series across commercial broadcasters and streaming services were on ITV. TAR was down 1% year-on-year for the nine-month period, outperforming our broadcast competitors but slightly below previous guidance impacted by macroeconomic uncertainty. Q3 TAR was down 8%. M&E non-advertising revenues declined 3% over the 9 months, as expected.

Outlook

ITV Studios: We continue to expect ITV Studios to deliver good revenue growth over the full year, ahead of the market, driven by external revenue. As previously guided, the EBITA margin will be at the lower end of the 13% to 15% range, reflecting the revenue mix in the year. Revenue, margin and profit are heavily weighted to Q4, reflecting the phasing of productions with a strong pipeline of deliveries including SuburraMaxima for Netflix; Love Island US: Beyond The Villa S3 for Peacock; Hell’s Kitchen S25 and 26 for Fox; and Line of Duty S7, The Last Detectives, and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾  for the BBC, alongside significant high-margin licensing deals within Global Partnerships.

M&E: We are on track to deliver continued profitable digital revenue growth. However, due to the weaker demand for advertising, we expect TAR to be down around 5-10% in Q4 and down around 2-3% for the full year 2026 when compared to the same period in 2025. To align our costs with advertiser demand, we have identified £30 million of additional temporary savings in M&E in Q4. This comprises: £25 million of content savings and £5 million of discretionary non-content savings. The total content budget for 2026 is expected to be c.£1.2 billion.

Notes to editors

1. Unless otherwise stated, all financial and operating figures refer to the nine months ended 30 September 2026, with growth compared to the same period in 2025.

2. Group financial performance

1. Total ITV Studios revenue includes £70 million (2025: £50 million) of intra-segment revenue derived from trading between Global Partnerships and ITV Studios productions

2. Internal revenue originates mainly in the UK and includes trading between ITV Studios and M&E, and Global Partnerships and ITV Studios productions

3. Total advertising revenue includes ITV Family net advertising revenue (NAR), digital advertising and sponsorship

3. Key performance indicators 

●        Our definition of total organic revenue excludes the impact of any acquisitions made during the current or prior period and the year-on-year movement in foreign exchange. In the nine months to the end of September 2026, on a constant currency basis, the favourable translation impact of foreign exchange on total revenue was £1 million.

●        Total digital revenue includes digital advertising revenue and subscription revenue, as well as linear addressable revenue, digital sponsorship and partnership revenue, ITV Win, commission from STV for ITV selling their video-on-demand inventory, social media advertising revenue, and any other revenues from digital business ventures which qualify under the definition. Given the nature of digital revenue, it will evolve over time.

●        Total streaming hours measure the total number of hours users spent watching ITV across all streaming platforms at a device level. This includes streaming hours for both ad-funded and subscription streaming. Given the nature of the market and our strategy to grow digital revenues, we will include viewing hours from platforms and services where we serve ITV content, where we can reliably and robustly measure and de-duplicate such hours. Total streaming hours were reported as 1,660m in Q3 2025, which included some estimates of total streaming viewing from third-party data providers. This has since been updated to reflect final data.

●         ITV Family share of commercial viewing is the total viewing of audiences over the period achieved by ITV’s family of channels as a proportion of all commercial broadcast TV viewing in the UK, from transmission and seven days post transmission on catch up. ITV Family includes ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV Quiz (previously  TVBe), and associated “HD” and “+1” channels.

●         The share of top 1,000 commercial broadcast TV programmes KPI includes TV viewing from transmission and seven days post-transmission on catch up, as well as six weeks prior to the transmission window. It excludes programmes with a duration of <ten minutes. This metric is calculated as a 12-month rolling average to normalise seasonal scheduling and is viewing on a TV set only

●        % change for performance indicators is calculated on rounded numbers. 

4. ITV continues to maintain good access to liquidity. At 30 September 2026, total liquidity was £940 million, comprising cash of £240 million and committed undrawn facilities of £700 million (out of a total of £800 million). Net debt was £695 million (30 June 2026: £652 million).
5. In September 2026, the Group’s €360m bond matured, which was funded by a drawdown of its £300 million Term Loan. This matures in September 2029.
6. ITV’s  £100 million share buyback is progressing well. As of market close on 06 November 2026, ITV had bought back 116,574,761 shares (a total of £81 million), all of which are being held by ITV as Treasury Shares.