U.K. TV giant ITV continues to focus on growing a successful production business, CEO Carolyn McCall said during an earnings call with reporters on Thursday after posting record full-year earnings for its ITV Studios production unit as she declined to comment on market chatter about a possible merger for the division.
“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.”
Deals have been part of that growth. “We bought really good labels. We’ve backed fantastic talent, … and it’s really paying off as a strategy,” McCall said. “So, really no comment on anything to do with the speculation, but that you can see how well the business has done.”
In Thursday’s earnings update, McCall said that “ITV Studios has delivered record profits this year, despite the one-off impact of the writers and actors strike and a softer demand from free-to-air broadcasters, which reflects the strength, scale, diversification and creativity of ITV Studios production companies across the world.”In its earnings report, however, the company also didn’t address potential deals that it has explored for ITV Studios after recent reports of a possible merger with RedBird IMI’s All3Media.
Asked about industry consolidation, McCall said the consensus, whether in the U.S., the U.K. or Europe, is that there will be more. “We are holding our own,” she added.
Questioned about having TV networks and production labels under the same corporate roof, McCall said on Thursday’s call: “There are definite merits to being integrated. There’s no question. You talk to any label in our ITV Studios family, and they all really, really value the fact that they can break shows on ITV and they become famous very quickly with their shows once they go onto our channels. That’s an absolutely big thing for us in retaining and recruiting talent and attracting people who (are) really high-caliber.”
That said, “every board everywhere has to keep all options open, and our board is no different to that,” the ITV CEO said. “We review everything, and we review it regularly.”
McCall in the update though touted the diversification of ITV’s business. “We are becoming a more resilient business with content production and digital now accounting for close to two-thirds of our revenue,” she said. “Our ongoing transformation ensures we are an adaptable and agile company, well positioned to deliver good profitable growth, strong cash generation and attractive returns to shareholders.”
Streaming growth with a focus on profitability and sustainability has also been in ITV’s focus. Its streamer ITVX saw digital viewing rise 12 percent in 2024, with digital advertising revenue growing 15 percent. In its earnings update, ITV highlighted its “attractive returns,” without providing details, and adding that “by the end of 2025, we will have recouped the cumulative investment in ITVX, much earlier than anticipated.”
Discussing streaming upside, McCall said her team’s focus is on “profitable growth” instead of buying subscriber gains or having “unrealistic” sub growth targets. “It’s highly profitable,” she concluded about ITVX Premium, saying the subscriber tier has more than 1 million users. But ITV’s business approach is to focuses on advertising-supported streaming, with its ad-free premium tier only being promoted in a very targeted way.
Asked about the outlook for the ad market, McCall said: “We would all love an answer. … No one knows precisely. I think we have a stable outlook.” She then touted that “26 percent of our revenue today is digital advertising, and it was 9 percent in 2018, so you can see we’ve already made quite a shift to diversify” because free-to-air TV is “somewhat linked to GDP.” So the economy is “not a big risk in the way it might have been in the past.”
The call also featured questions about YouTube, TikTok and AI.
On Thursday’s call, McCall was joined by ITV CFO Chris Kennedy, Julian Bellamy, managing director, ITV Studios, and Kevin Lygo, managing director, media and entertainment.
Lygo was asked about ITV’s second year airing the Oscars. He said that the same weekend also featured the Brit Awards and sports content, adding to excitement around the Oscars. “It just makes us alive,” Lygo concluded. “Yes, it is really good for us, getting”
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