British broadcaster ITV reported a 7% decline in first-quarter revenue as its studio division felt the impact of last year’s Hollywood labor strikes.
The commercial broadcaster’s total revenue was £887 million ($1.1 billion), compared with £952 million in 2023, with a recovery in the advertising market offset by a 16% decline at ITV Studios.
The media and entertainment unit, which houses its main network, rose 2% to £505m, according to a trading update this morning. The income was not reported.
Total revenue at ITV Studios, which amounts to approximately Love Island And Mr. Bates versus the Post Office was £382m, down from £457m in the same period last year.
According to ITV, this was “due to the phasing of deliveries, which are heavily biased towards the second half of the year, and the expected impact of both the US writers and actors strikes in 2023 and weaker demand from free-to-air channels in Europe, who have held back.” Spend money until they see more certainty in the advertising market.”
Still, ITV Studios delivered shows like The Reluctant Traveler for Apple TV+, The Red King for UKTV’s alibi, The Assembly for channel 4 and I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! in Germany for RTL.
ITV expects full-year studio revenue to be broadly flat as writer and actor strikes offset growth elsewhere by deferring around £80m of revenue to 2025, as previously stated. It will deliver in the second half of the year Hell’s Kitchen for Fox, A TAXI for Netflix, The better sister And Lazarus for Prime Video, Ludwig And Show trial for the BBC, Guardian for OCS and Canal+, Love Island in the UK, USA and Australia and The voice in Australia and Germany.
ITVX, the broadcaster’s streaming service, increased its streaming hours by 16% to 449 million, with monthly active users growing in line with expectations. Overall, digital revenue rose 11% to £118m, partly offsetting growth.
ITV remains by far the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster, with shows accounting for 91% of the top 1,000 non-BBC titles. Net debt has also fallen significantly, from £553m at the end of December to £272m on March 31.
ITV CEO Carolyn McCall said the group’s cost savings were “on track to reach £40m in 2024”, as previously predicted. “Overall, we expect to continue to make good strategic progress and remain on track to achieve our 2026 KPI targets,” she added.