ITV restructures to target on-demand

UK commercial network ITV is restructuring, forming a new Media and Entertainment Division with extra focus on on-demand viewing, and looking at reducing its presence in London.

Kevin Lygo

Director of television Kevin Lygo will be overall MD of the new division and will continue to run the broadcast side of the business while chief marketing officer (CMO) Rufus Radcliffe will head on-demand.

As a result of this restructure, ITV will be recruiting a new CMO as well as a new chief operations officer for Media and Entertainment. Both roles will report to Kevin Lygo.

The Broadcast business will include all of ITV’s linear channels. The On-Demand unit will be the focus of digital product development and growth and will include the ITV Hub, ad-free version Hub+ and BritBox, the digital SVoD service created by the BBC and ITV.

Just as the ITV Studios production and distribution division currently does, Media and Entertainment will have full profit-and-loss responsibility for all its activities, costs and revenue.

ITV said today that as well as aligning its resources and investments clearly to the two main ways of viewing, the restructure will “drive improvements in efficiency and reduce cost.”

The process of restructuring has now started and will be complete by the end of March 2021.

Carolyn McCall, ITV’s CEO, said: “Our new Media and Entertainment division will enable ITV to continue to deliver mass, live audiences while investing in the future to create the sort of content and viewing experience that younger and other harder-to-reach viewers want.

“ITV will continue to broadcast shows which entertain millions of viewers. Most are watched live and that fact, together with the scale of these audiences, will continue to offer unrivalled opportunities for brands to reach consumers.

“Linear channels will be around and be profitable for many years but we also need an on-demand business which will be increasingly the focus of our new investments in content and technology and growth engine attracting younger and more targeted audiences to ITV.”

ITV also plans to reduce its London office space over the coming years to reflect the changing needs of the business in the context of its digital transformation and the move towards more flexible working as well as taking costs out of the business.

No decision about exactly what this means for ITV’s current London facilities has been made yet as the company assesses the space it needs for the future.