ITV is cutting jobs from its in-house creative agency following a slump in advertising revenues which has impacted the sector at large, and forced the broadcaster to cut back on making shows.
The Telegraph reported that ITV laid off employees from its in-house advertising agency ITV Creative last month. An insider told the newspaper that the total number of redundancies was in single figures.
ITV Creative recently poached Mother strategy director Tatiana Jezierski, as well as former BBC creative director Tom Houser.
It comes after the broadcaster declared a 32% slump in profits earlier this month, with pre-tax profits falling 61% to £193 million over the year compared with £501 million in 2022.
The broadcaster said it was cutting £10m from its programming budget, and detailed plans to make £50m of ad savings by 2026.
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The redundancies have been made despite the broadcaster cutting back on new shows at the end of last year, with lTV boss Carolyn McCall blaming the dip on “a challenging macro-environment”.
As part of its efforts to tackle the economic impact of the slump, ITV launched a new studio dedicated entirely to ad funded entertainment in an effort to connect more with audiences.
ITV is not the only broadcaster to have suffered in the advertising slump, with Channel 4 slashing over 200 jobs across the business.
Addressing the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in November last year, Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon said the slump was the “deepest” it had been since the 2008 recession.
