ITV expects its total advertising revenue to fall by around 5% to 10% in the final quarter of 2026, a range whose best case matches the gloomiest of six analyst forecasts the broadcaster itself compiled less than three weeks earlier. The guidance came in a trading update for the nine months to September 30, published on November 11, 2026, alongside £30 million of temporary savings in the Media & Entertainment division that ITV has agreed to sell to Sky.

In Short

ITV said on November 11 that its advertising revenue fell 8% in the third quarter and will drop around 5% to 10% in the fourth, while the six analysts whose estimates it collected in October had pencilled in a Q4 decline of just 1.8%. That matters to anyone buying or selling UK television, because ITV's channels hold 32.7% of commercial TV viewing in the UK and the company blames part of the slowdown on ad money moving to global streaming platforms. ITV is taking £25 million out of fourth-quarter content spending and £5 million out of other costs, while ITVX streaming hours rose 29% ahead of a Sky takeover expected to complete in the second half of 2027.

An 8% third-quarter fall

The weakest number in the statement is the third quarter. Total advertising revenue, which ITV defines as ITV Family net advertising revenue plus digital advertising and sponsorship, fell 8% in the three months to September 30, according to the trading update. Over nine months the decline was 1%, from £1,247 million to £1,238 million.

ITV described the nine-month figure as "outperforming our broadcast competitors but slightly below previous guidance impacted by macroeconomic uncertainty." The trading update does not restate what that earlier guidance was. When ITV reported its half-year numbers, it put first-half total advertising revenue at £850 million, up 3%, with the second quarter up 8% on the World Cup and the third quarter guided around 5% lower, as PPC Land reported in September in its coverage of Ian Whittaker's study of a 2034 Freeview switch-off. Against that marker, the third quarter came in about three percentage points worse than ITV had expected.

Subtracting the £850 million first half from the £1,238 million nine-month total leaves roughly £388 million of advertising revenue in the third quarter, by PPC Land's calculation, compared with about £422 million a year earlier. The first-half figure is rounded, so the quarterly number is an approximation rather than a disclosed figure.

Digital advertising revenue grew 6% over the nine months, according to ITV, and offset part of the decline in linear TV advertising. The Media & Entertainment (M&E) division's total revenue fell 1% to £1,430 million from £1,445 million. Non-advertising revenue in M&E declined 3%, which ITV said was expected. Taking total advertising revenue away from M&E revenue gives £192 million of non-advertising income against £198 million in 2025, by PPC Land's arithmetic.

Below the consensus ITV compiled in October

On October 22, 2026, ITV published a consensus for the same nine-month period. It is a mean of estimates from six registered investment analysts, who remain anonymous. ITV states in the document that it "has not verified any of the information received," and that "None of the contributing analysts have any access to ITV's internal forecasts, budgets or any other information which is not publicly available." The figures below are analyst estimates compiled by ITV, not ITV's own forecasts.

Nine months to September 30, 2026 Analyst consensus (£m) Reported (£m) Difference (£m)
Total advertising revenue 1,250 1,238 -12
M&E non-advertising revenue 190 192 (derived) +2
Total M&E revenue 1,440 1,430 -10
ITV Studios total revenue 1,331 1,332 +1
Group total revenue 2,771 2,762 -9
Group external revenue 2,369 2,358 -11

The consensus had total advertising revenue flat on 2025. It came in 1% lower. Analysts also expected ITV Studios' external revenue to reach £929 million, down 3% from £962 million; ITV reported a 4% decline in external Studios revenue without giving the sterling figure. For the group, the consensus pointed to external revenue down 1%. The reported decline was 2%.

On the nine months, then, the misses were small: £9 million at group level on revenue of more than £2.7 billion. The outlook is a different matter.

Q4: a forecast gap of almost six points

The consensus document included a fourth-quarter estimate for total advertising revenue: a decline of 1.8%, within an analyst range of -5.0% to +0.4%. ITV now expects a decline of around 5% to 10%. The top of ITV's range equals the most pessimistic analyst estimate, and the 7.5% midpoint is 5.7 percentage points below the consensus mean.

The comparison base is not a strong one. ITV's fourth-quarter 2025 advertising revenue was down 6%, according to the consensus document. Compounding that decline with ITV's new guidance puts fourth-quarter 2026 advertising revenue roughly 11% to 15% below the fourth quarter of 2024, by PPC Land's calculation.

For the full year, ITV now expects total advertising revenue to be down around 2% to 3% compared with 2025. The consensus document did not publish a full-year figure.

Why did six analysts underestimate the scale by so much? The document does not say when individual estimates were submitted, and the analysts had no access to non-public information. What it does show is that, as of October 22, the market expected a modest fourth-quarter dip, and that ITV's own view three weeks later was considerably weaker.

Three reasons for weaker demand

ITV attributes the second-half slowdown to three factors. In the words of Carolyn McCall, ITV's chief executive: "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."

None of the three is quantified in the trading update. Each has a history in PPC Land's reporting.

Global streaming platforms

The second reason is the most direct statement of competitive pressure. ITV does not name the platforms. The UK supply of streaming ad inventory has widened during 2026. On October 6, Sky Media and Amazon Ads made Sky's streaming inventory in the UK and Ireland available through Amazon Ads, with Programmatic Guaranteed deals live at launch. In June, Channel 4 opened its VOD inventory to five DSPs, including Amazon DSP, with Prime Video, Netflix and Disney named alongside it as Amazon DSP inventory. The same month, Barb said work to integrate Prime Video into its CFlight campaign measurement was under way.

The wider market picture points the same way. The Advertising Association and WARC put UK advertising spend at £46.7 billion in 2025, up 6.4%, but two in every three pounds went to Google, Meta and Amazon, according to analysis PPC Land covered in May. A Boston Consulting Group survey from September 2025 found streaming platforms reached 97% of viewers across the UK, France, Germany and Switzerland, and that global streamers' share of UK creative and entertainment revenue had risen from 22% in 2014 to 42% in 2024.

Less Healthy Food rules

The third reason is regulatory. ITV dates the impact of the Less Healthy Food restrictions to October 1, 2025. That was the date on which the UK advertising industry agreed to apply the rules voluntarily, ahead of a statutory start on January 5, 2026, as PPC Land reported when IAB UK, the Advertising Association, ISBA and the IPA launched an awareness campaign in July 2025. Under that agreement, TV and on-demand ads for identifiable less healthy food products were barred before the 9pm watershed, and paid-for online ads for them were not to run at any time.

For the third quarter, the comparison is with a period before the rules applied; from October 2026, both years include them. The trading update names them as a factor in second-half demand. It does not say how much revenue they removed.

£30 million of temporary savings

ITV's response is on the cost side. "We are taking decisive action, aligning our investment with advertiser demand to deliver additional temporary content and discretionary non-content cost savings in Q4," McCall said.

The company has identified £30 million of additional temporary savings in M&E for the fourth quarter: £25 million from content and £5 million in discretionary non-content costs. The total content budget for 2026 is expected to be about £1.2 billion, which makes the content saving roughly 2% of the annual programme budget, by PPC Land's calculation. ITV does not say which programmes, schedules or genres are affected, or whether any of the £25 million is deferred spending that returns in 2027. The word "temporary" is ITV's.

"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," McCall said.

ITVX grows faster than the revenue it earns

Digital is where ITV's numbers still rise. Total digital revenue reached £461 million in the nine months, up 7% from £432 million, according to the trading update. That is about 32% of M&E revenue, up from roughly 30% a year earlier, by PPC Land's calculation.

ITV's definition of digital revenue is broad. It includes digital advertising and subscription revenue, linear addressable revenue, digital sponsorship and partnership revenue, the ITV Win competitions business, commission from STV for selling its video-on-demand inventory, social media advertising revenue, and "any other revenues from digital business ventures which qualify under the definition." ITV adds that "Given the nature of digital revenue, it will evolve over time." The 7% figure therefore mixes advertising on BVOD inventory with subscriptions and several smaller lines.

Total streaming hours rose 29% to 2,153 million from 1,668 million. The 2025 comparison has been restated: ITV originally reported 1,660 million hours for the first nine months of 2025, a figure that included estimates from third-party data providers and has since been updated to final data. The metric counts hours at device level across ad-funded and subscription streaming, and includes viewing on "platforms and services where we serve ITV content, where we can reliably and robustly measure and de-duplicate such hours." The update does not list those outside platforms. ITV content has appeared on Disney+ since July 2025 under a content exchange between Disney and ITV, though the trading update does not say whether such hours are counted.

ITV said ITVX "delivered record viewing during the period," driven by the final matches of the Football World Cup and by Trigger Point, Big Brother and Love Island.

The ratio between the two growth rates stands out. Streaming hours grew 29%; digital advertising revenue grew 6%. The update gives no impression volumes, ad load or pricing, so it is not possible to tell from the figures whether the gap reflects lower yields, more viewing in ad-free subscription tiers, hours on partner platforms where ITV earns less, or simply the timing of World Cup inventory. PPC Land's coverage of Whittaker's study cited an estimate that about 15p in the pound of linear spend is recovered on streaming in the UK.

Viewing share rose while ad revenue fell

ITV's audience indicators moved up. The ITV Family's share of commercial viewing reached 32.7%, against 31.8% a year earlier. That measure covers ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV Quiz and their HD and +1 versions, as a share of all commercial broadcast TV viewing in the UK, including seven days of catch-up.

ITV's share of the top 1,000 commercial broadcast TV programmes rose to 92% from 90%. That metric is a 12-month rolling average, counts TV-set viewing only and excludes programmes shorter than ten minutes. So far in 2026, eight of the ten most-watched series across commercial broadcasters and streaming services were on ITV, according to the company.

A bigger share of a shrinking pool is still a shrinking pool. The combination of higher viewing share and lower advertising revenue in the third quarter points to pressure on the total amount advertisers committed rather than to a loss of audience, though the update does not break out market-level figures.

ITV Studios: weighted to the fourth quarter

The production arm, which ITV keeps after the Sky sale, is having a quieter year so far. ITV Studios' total revenue fell 1% to £1,332 million from £1,350 million. On ITV's organic measure, which excludes acquisitions and currency movements, the decline was also 1%, against growth of 7% in the same period of 2025. On a constant currency basis, ITV said, the favourable translation impact of foreign exchange on total revenue was £1 million.

Internal revenue, mostly programmes made for ITV's own channels, grew 4%. New and returning scripted and unscripted shows for M&E offset the effect of previously announced scheduling changes to the soaps and daytime production. External revenue fell 4%, which ITV put down to the timing of production deliveries and licensing deals, "which are heavily weighted to Q4." Total Studios revenue includes £70 million of intra-segment trading between Global Partnerships and ITV Studios productions, up from £50 million.

ITV said distribution revenue continued to grow strongly on "the effective monetisation of its unique and valuable content library," the studio's back catalogue. ITV Studios produced five of the UK's ten most-watched dramas in the third quarter: The Gentlemen for Netflix, Ludwig series two and Vigil series three for the BBC, and The Blame and The Dark for ITV. The Blame is the most-watched drama of the year so far, according to ITV.

"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," McCall said.

For the full year, ITV still expects ITV Studios to deliver "good revenue growth" ahead of the market, driven by external revenue. The EBITA margin is expected at the lower end of the 13% to 15% range, reflecting the revenue mix. Deliveries scheduled for the fourth quarter include SuburraMaxima for Netflix; Love Island US: Beyond The Villa series three for Peacock; Hell's Kitchen seasons 25 and 26 for Fox; and Line of Duty series seven, The Last Detectives and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ for the BBC, alongside what ITV calls "significant high-margin licensing deals within Global Partnerships."

Debt, a matured bond and the buyback

Net debt rose to £695 million at September 30 from £652 million at June 30, an increase of £43 million in a quarter. Total liquidity was £940 million, made up of £240 million in cash and £700 million of committed undrawn facilities out of £800 million available.

In September, ITV's €360 million bond matured. The company funded the repayment by drawing down its £300 million term loan, which matures in September 2029.

ITV's £100 million share buyback had reached 116,574,761 shares, worth £81 million, by market close on November 6, 2026. All of the shares are held in treasury. That implies an average price of about 69.5p per share, and leaves £19 million of the programme to run, by PPC Land's calculation.

All figures in the statement are unaudited, ITV noted.

Sky deal: a Public Interest Intervention Notice

The sale of M&E to Sky passed a regulatory step on November 4, when the Secretary of State issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN). McCall called it "an expected and important milestone in the regulatory review process, and we are pleased that it is moving at pace." Under UK merger law, a PIIN allows ministers to bring public interest considerations into a merger review alongside the competition assessment. The trading update does not say which considerations the notice specifies. ITV continues to expect completion in the second half of 2027.

The transaction has moved in stages. Reuters reported on June 24 that Sky had agreed terms to buy ITV's broadcast and streaming arm for £1.6 billion. On July 6, the two companies confirmed that Sky would acquire ITV Media and Entertainment for up to £1.6 billion: £1.2 billion in cash, the transfer of Love Productions to ITV Studios, and a performance earn-out of up to £0.2 billion. The perimeter covers ITV1 to ITV4, ITV Quiz, ITVX and UTV, and a separate five-year content deal between Sky and ITV Studios is worth £2.1 billion. The Competition and Markets Authority issued an invitation to comment on the transaction on July 23, with submissions closing on August 6.

Sky's own ownership is also changing. Comcast announced in June that it would spin off NBCUniversal and Sky in a tax-free transaction expected to take about 12 months.

ITV says the sale will leave ITV Studios as "a highly attractive, pure play, global content business." Until then, the weaker advertising market sits with the business that is being sold, and the £30 million of fourth-quarter savings falls on that division.

Why it matters for the marketing community

ITV's guidance puts figures on the near-term outlook for UK TV advertising. A fourth-quarter decline of 5% to 10% from a channel family that holds 32.7% of UK commercial viewing, in the quarter that includes the run-up to Christmas, describes weaker advertising demand than the analysts covering ITV expected in late October.

The pattern matches other European broadcasters. RTL Group reported in August that its TV advertising revenue fell 4% to €977 million in the first half of 2026 while digital advertising rose 10.9%. In Germany, ProSiebenSat.1 cited Nielsen data showing German TV advertising investment fell about 4% in 2025. In each case, streaming revenue grows from a smaller base and has not replaced the linear decline.

The reasons ITV gives also tie the UK market to trends PPC Land has tracked through 2026. Rakuten TV's Stuart Keith said in an interview published in October that disruption from global streamers is pushing public service and single-market broadcasters into mergers. ITV's Q3 statement puts that argument in figures: audience share up, streaming hours up 29%, and advertising revenue still falling.

There is also the question of what a combined Sky and ITV would sell. In June 2025, Sky, Channel 4 and ITV announced plans for a joint self-service TV advertising marketplace built on Comcast's Universal Ads and FreeWheel. If the Sky deal completes in the second half of 2027, two of those three partners will sit under one owner. The trading update does not address how ITV's ad sales operation fits into that structure.

Timeline

Summary

Who: ITV plc, the UK broadcaster and producer, led by chief executive Carolyn McCall; six anonymous analysts whose estimates ITV compiled into a consensus; Sky, which has agreed to buy ITV's Media and Entertainment division; and the UK Secretary of State, who issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice on the deal.

What: ITV reported nine-month total advertising revenue down 1% to £1,238 million, a third-quarter decline of 8%, digital revenue up 7% to £461 million and streaming hours up 29% to 2,153 million. It guided fourth-quarter advertising revenue down around 5% to 10%, against an analyst consensus of -1.8%, and full-year advertising revenue down 2% to 3%. It identified £30 million of temporary fourth-quarter savings, £25 million of them in content.

When: The trading update was published on November 11, 2026, covering the nine months to September 30, 2026. The consensus was published on October 22, 2026, and the Public Interest Intervention Notice was issued on November 4, 2026. Completion of the Sky deal is expected in the second half of 2027.

Where: The United Kingdom, where ITV's channels and ITVX sell advertising, with ITV Studios producing for broadcasters and streamers including Netflix, the BBC, Peacock and Fox.

Why: ITV says advertising demand weakened in the second half because of macroeconomic uncertainty, increased digital advertising on global streaming platforms, and Less Healthy Food regulations in force since October 1, 2025. The numbers show a broadcaster gaining viewing share and streaming hours while its advertising revenue falls, ahead of a sale that will separate its advertising business from its studio.