ITV is still in “active discussions” with Sky over a sale of its network to the pay-TV giant.
The UK’s oldest commercial broadcaster has been quiet over the deal in recent months but used a Q1 trading update to note its position this morning. It said it will “update the market in due course.”
ITV first confirmed “preliminary discussions” with Comcast-owned Sky in November last year over a shock £1.6B ($2.2B) sale of its Media & Entertainment (M&E) business.
Sources since have noted that talks have been quietly rumbling along with no public discussion about them by ITV until today. We are told Sky is very much leading on the deal with its parent Comcast in the background. The deal will require approval from Ofcom and the Competition Markets Authority
The deal will see Sky buy ITV’s M&E biz, effectively its network, commissioning and streaming arm, but not its Studios production and distribution division. The bid left some in the industy scratching their heads, per our snap analysis last year, but others said there was logic to building scale.
The update came via an ITV Q1 trading update, which showed a slight 2% decline in the M&E biz that Sky is buying to £477M. However, a more encouraging sign was that digital advertising revenue grew 14%, supported by a record-breaking start to the year for streamer ITVX, with total streaming hours up 13%, ITV said.
At the same time, ITV Studios revenue grew 4% to £400M. It peformed particularly well during the first quarter of this year in the U.S., with the update flagging the delivery of Netflix’s Skyscraper Live, Disney+’s Rivals Season 2 and Love Island US, all of which are produced by ITV Studios indies. It had a quieter time in the UK, with a lower volume of soaps and daytime content.
ITV’s overall revenue for the quarter was flat at £877M.
CEO Carolyn McCall said ITV expects a strong July driven by advertising around the soccer World Cup, for which it shares coverage with the BBC.
“ITV maintained good momentum in the first quarter of 2026, delivering results in line with market expectations,” said McCall. “While we are monitoring the ongoing difficult geopolitical environment, we are focused on what we can control and remain on track to deliver our full year guidance of good revenue growth in ITV Studios and strong profitable digital revenue growth in M&E.”
