ITV has completed its £150M ($193M) costs savings program a year early, according to full-year results published this morning, which showed record ITV Studios profits but a worrying dip in paid subscribers to streamer ITVX.
Nearly a year ago, ITV implemented dozens of layoffs, amounting to around 200, and today it revealed that it delivered £60M of savings in 2024, which was £10M up on the prior year.
This comprised £20M of the initial mega £150M savings plan, which has now been completed a year early, while £40M of savings were part of what is called “the ongoing transformation and efficiency programme.”
Relating to the “significant restructuring and transformation programme of the business,” ITV said it took a one-off restructuring and transformation cost of £50M. Redundancy costs, consultancy fees and other related costs of £36M were also noted.
ITV has consistently said it will make savings while continuing to spend the same amount of money on shows, if not more. This figure amounted to nearly £1.3B last year.
Overall, ITV saw a slight dip in revenue of 4% to £3.8B, while EBITA was up 11% to £542M – albeit unsurprisingly considering profits tumbled last year tumbled last year by 32%.
Those improved profits were buttressed by a record year for production arm ITV Studios, according to the commercial net, which saw EBITA rise 5% to £300M. ITV said this figure will improve in the second half of 2025, although margin is expected to be at the lower end due to “the change in sales mix as the market recovers following the U.S. strikes, with a lower proportion of high-margin catalogue sales, and a higher proportion of lower-margin scripted deliveries.” This is a reflection of what is currently taking place in the market, with less U.S. money around for co-pros. A number of UK broadcaster including ITV shows are understood to be stuck in limbo without American funding.
The production arm delivered shows such as Mr Bates vs the Post Office, Netflix smash Fool Me Once, Disney+’s Rivals and Apple TV+’s Franklin last year. The results come with the long-running rumors around a sale of either ITV or ITV Studios having ramped up of late, with a Reuters report that ITV Studios is in talks over merging with RedBird IMI’s All3Media.
Concerningly for ITV, paid subscribers to shiny new streamer ITVX dipped by 23% to 1 million, which ITV put down to a focus on the ad-funded proposition over paid-for proposition.
However, by the end of 2025, ITV revealed it wants to have recouped the cumulative investment in ITVX,
which it said was “much earlier than anticipated.” ITVX launched just over two years as a glitzy replacement for ITV Hub and ITV’s strategy has since shifted towards that streamer.
