Carolyn McCall

Carolyn McCall confirmed in ITV's Q1 2026 trading update that ITV was in active discussions with Sky over the proposed £1.6bn acquisition of ITV's Media & Entertainment division. Her phrasing moved the deal from market speculation to board-level acknowledgement, signalling that ITV's leadership has accepted the strategic logic of folding the broadcaster's channels and ITVX streaming platform into Comcast's Sky. McCall has overseen ITV through a period of accelerating structural pressure from streaming, with ITVX's launch in late 2022 its primary digital response, and advertising revenues under sustained downward pressure from social-media platforms.

Born in 1961, McCall is one of the most experienced media executives in the UK. She served as CEO of Guardian Media Group from 2006 to 2010, overseeing its financial restructuring and the Scott Trust's endowment strategy, before becoming CEO of easyJet from 2010 to 2017, where she repositioned it from a low-cost carrier to a network airline. She joined ITV in January 2018. Before media, she worked at NatWest and ran the Midland Metro advertising concession.

If the Sky deal completes, McCall's tenure at ITV will have ended with its sale to a US media conglomerate, a conclusion that would have seemed improbable when she joined. The strategic logic is sound from a cost-consolidation standpoint, and she has publicly argued that scale is necessary to compete with Netflix and Disney; the deal, if it clears regulatory review, validates that argument.