ITV Studios bosses are remaining bullish in the face of declining U.S. and international revenues as the Love Island maker prepares to be unleashed onto the market.
Of concern for ITV Studios, this morning’s ITV half-year results showed a 17% revenue decline in the U.S. and a 24% slide internationally, reflecting a reversal of previous fortunes.
On a results call with press, ITV Studios chief Julian Bellamy put this mainly down to a “softening of demand” in the free-to-air space and said it “underlines the broader importance” of the producer-distributor pushing further into making shows for streamers and developing its Zoo 55 digital arm.
“Let’s not forget, we’re on the up,” Bellamy said bullishly, as he pointed out that overall ITV Studios revenues grew 2% during the first six months of this year to £912M ($1.2B). “We feel confident about the progress we are making.”
ITV CEO Carolyn McCall added: “We need to clarify that we don’t see a softening of the market, this was one small segment of the market.”
ITV Studios has made growth with the American streamers a cornerstone of its strategy over the past few years and there will nevertheless be jitters about the decline in revenue across the pond. Helping allay those jitters are some big shows set to deliver during the latter half of 2026 including The Gentlemen Season 2 for Netflix and Apple TV’s Guilty Creatures, both made by ITV Studios indies.
When the Sky-ITV deal completes around this time next year, ITV Studios will be unleashed onto the market and will become a publicly listed company.
McCall backed ITV Studios today as having “terrific competitive advantages” with “extraordinary IP” and refused to budge on the question of whether ITV Studios will look for a buyer once it becomes independent. This came a few days after the CEO of Banijay downplayed the idea of the French behemoth swooping for ITV Studios now that it is merging with All3Media.
“We’re confident about competing because we have scale,” said McCall of ITV Studios. “We are a globally scaled diversifed business and feel we don’t have any issue with our scale. And the other thing for our shareholders is that they are hugely supportive of having a listed pure play studios business. They support that strongly.”
“A huge amount of speculation about virtually every company in America”
McCall was quick to refuse comment on rumors further up the chain that ITV’s new owner Sky will itself be sold now that it has been divested by Comcast.
“There is a huge amount of speculation about virtually every company in America so I can’t really comment,” she added.
She once again backed Sky’s commitment to ITV News once the £1.6B deal completes. She noted that the pay-TV giant has made it “extremely clear” there will be “two distinct separate editorial voices for news” along with “opportunities to supercharge and promote” ITV’s regional news coverage on Sky.
ITV delivered a set of solid if unspectacular results this morning, including strong profits for the soon-to-be-sold networks biz, mostly due to the World Cup. It also revealed an early share buyback of £100M for shareholders, which comes prior to the Sky-ITV deal completing.
