ITVX: What It Is, the Sky Deal, and Live Addressable+

The ITVX is the streaming platform of ITV, the UK's largest commercial public service broadcaster — and in May 2026 it shot back to the top of search trends for three reasons at once: a potential acquisition by Sky, the 1 billion streams milestone hit earlier than ever, and the launch of an addressable advertising tool that is shaking up the paid TV market. In this guide I explain what ITVX is, why it exploded in searches now, and what this means for advertisers in the UK.

TL;DR

• ITVX is ITV's streaming service (UK): a hybrid AVOD/SVOD model — free with ads or ad-free subscription.
• It replaced the old ITV Hub in December 2022 and jumped from ~4,000 to ~15,000 hours of content.
• In May 2026 it surpassed 1 billion streams for the year, eight days ahead of the 2025 pace.
• Sky is close to buying ITV's channels and ITVX; ITV would retain only its studios arm (ITV Studios).
• Live Addressable+ brings digital-style targeting to live linear TV — the year's best lesson in addressable TV.

What is ITVX and how does it work?

ITVX is ITV's streaming service, launched in December 2022 to replace the old ITV Hub. It wasn't just a name change: the catalogue grew from around 4,000 hours to approximately 15,000 hours of programming. ITV itself bills it as the UK's first integrated AVOD and SVOD platform — combining free ad-supported streaming and a paid ad-free subscription in a single app.

In practice, viewers choose: watch for free by accepting commercial breaks, or pay for ITVX Premium to remove ads and unlock extra content. This hybrid design is what makes ITVX a talking point for media professionals — it turns broadcast TV audiences into measurable advertising inventory, with data on who is on the other side of the screen.

Even the name has strategy behind it. The brand was created by consultancy DixonBaxi, rotating a "plus" sign by 45 degrees: in a market crowded with "+" services, ITV decided to be the "X". The X appears as a multiplier — a signal of scale, anticipation and premium entertainment.

AVOD, SVOD and why the acronyms matter

Before we go further, it's worth nailing down three terms that appear throughout this article:

• AVOD (Advertising-based Video on Demand): free, ad-supported video on demand. This is where the advertiser opportunity lies.
• SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand): subscription-based video, ad-free — the classic Netflix model from the early years.
• Hybrid (the ITVX case): both in the same app, letting the audience decide how to "pay": with money or with attention.

Why ITVX exploded in searches in May 2026

Three recent events pushed ITVX into the spotlight almost simultaneously.

First, the Sky negotiations. Sources close to both companies indicated in mid-May 2026 that a deal could be just weeks away. The proposed structure splits ITV in two: the TV channels and ITVX would go to Sky, while ITV shareholders would keep ITV Studios — the arm that produces programmes for ITV itself and for US streaming giants like Disney. For the UK market, this is the biggest broadcast media reorganisation in years.

Second, an audience record. ITVX surpassed 1 billion streams in 2026, reaching the milestone eight days earlier than it did in 2025. Consumption growth is exactly the fuel that boosts a platform's value ahead of an acquisition.

Third — and most relevant for those working in paid media — the launch of Live Addressable+. This is the one worth focusing on.

Live Addressable+: addressable advertising comes to live TV

In May 2026, ITV launched Live Addressable+, its addressable advertising product for live linear broadcasts. The launch began as an exclusive beta with Omnicom Media Group, involving more than 20 of the group's brands across sectors such as automotive, retail and telecoms, before opening to the wider market in subsequent weeks. Official details are available on the ITV press centre.

The term "addressable" means this: instead of everyone seeing the same ad in the same break, different advertisers deliver different ads to different audiences — in the same programme, at the same time. It's the logic of digital applied to TV.

What Live Addressable+ allows you to target

The innovation brings addressable targeting to ITV's live linear channels for the first time — ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV Quiz — as well as ITVX itself. Advertisers can use data attributes such as:

• Life stage: single, family with children, retired.
• Income bracket.
• Geographic location.
• Shopping preferences.

In practice, a car manufacturer can speak to higher-income families in a specific region while a retailer targets a different profile — all within the same break of the same live programme.

Why this is a big deal

Linear TV has always been the realm of mass reach, but "blind": you buy the programme, not the person. Addressable advertising breaks that logic and brings TV closer to what advertisers already do on Google and Meta — buying audiences, not space. Add to this the joint announcement by Sky, Channel 4 and ITV of their intention to create a premium video advertising marketplace, and it's clear that the UK is building a unified alternative to the US giants.

There is also a technical detail that changes the game: applying targeting to a live broadcast is far harder than to on-demand content. With recorded video, there's time to decide which ad to insert; with live, the substitution must happen in seconds, household by household, without interrupting the signal. Crossing this frontier is what makes Live Addressable+ a milestone — not just another programmatic media feature.

ITVX vs. ITV Hub: what changed in practice

The leap from the old ITV Hub to ITVX was not just about catalogue size. The table below summarises the change:

Aspect	ITV Hub (until 2022)	ITVX (since Dec 2022)
Hours of content	~4,000	~15,000
Model	Free catch-up + subscription	Integrated AVOD + SVOD
Advertising	Standard ads	Addressable (Live Addressable+)
Exclusive content	Limited	Films, series and original premieres
Brand	Extension of ITV Hub	Own identity (DixonBaxi)

ITVX was built to compete on equal footing with Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon — not as a simple catch-up player for programmes that have already aired. That ambition is what justifies Sky's interest in the asset.

The AVOD model and what it means for paid media

The point that matters most to campaign managers: free ad-supported streaming is no longer a plan B. Platforms worldwide — including Netflix and Prime Video — have launched ad tiers because audiences are resisting piling up subscriptions. ITVX was born hybrid and proves that well-targeted ads can fund content without driving viewers away.

For advertisers, this opens up new inventory: so-called CTV (Connected TV), the internet-connected television. Unlike traditional commercials, CTV ads can be targeted, measured and — with products like Live Addressable+ — delivered to specific profiles. It's the fusion of TV's reach with digital's precision, and that's why budgets that once went only to display are starting to move to the big screen.

If you follow how AI is changing what matters for UK businesses, you'll see the same trend here: data making media more precise and more accountable for results.

What the ITVX case teaches UK advertisers

The UK already has ITVX, but the lessons apply to any advertiser in the market. The ITVX case anticipates four movements:

1. TV becomes performance media. It's no longer possible to treat TV only as a "top-of-funnel" brand tool. With addressable, you can measure and optimise as you do in digital.
2. First-party data is the asset. Whoever has audience data — login, history, purchases — controls the targeting. This applies to both broadcasters and advertisers.
3. AVOD lowers the barrier to entry. Audiences accept ads in exchange for free content, expanding reachable inventory without requiring a subscription.
4. Unified measurement becomes a requirement. Cross-referencing TV, CTV and digital in a single dashboard is no longer a luxury but a necessity to avoid paying twice for the same audience.

How to apply this to your campaigns today

• Start treating CTV as its own media line, separate from traditional display.
• Structure your first-party data (CRM, pixel, conversion events) — without it, advanced targeting is an empty promise. The same principle applies when we talk about automation and AI agents for businesses: organised data becomes a competitive advantage.
• Test short-form video formats before moving significant budget to big screens.
• Negotiate measurement: ask for incremental reach reports, not just impressions.

Risks, limits and what NOT to copy blindly

Not everything in the ITVX move translates directly to every UK advertiser. Three warnings:

First, privacy and regulation. Targeting by income and location treads on sensitive ground. In the UK, the ICO (under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018) requires a clear legal basis for using personal data — copying the granularity seen here without proper consent is a recipe for fines.

Second, scale. ITVX relies on the massive broadcast audience of UK free-to-air TV. Smaller brands may not have that volume and could waste budget trying to address audiences that are too small to be efficient.

Third, platform dependency. The more an advertiser outsources data and measurement to a single vendor, the less control they have over their own results. The message is to build owned assets — not just rent the audience of a platform that, incidentally, is being bought by Sky.

Conclusion: ITVX is a map, not a destination

ITVX matters to UK advertisers less for what it is today and more for what it anticipates: the convergence of TV and digital, with data, targeting and measurement at the centre. The Sky negotiations and Live Addressable+ are just the visible symptoms of an industry reorganising around addressable advertising.

The next practical step is not to wait for a "UK version" — it's already here. It's to get your house in order: organise first-party data, separate CTV as a media line, and demand real measurement. Those who do this now will be ready when addressable TV becomes the norm — and that's closer than it seems.