Film and TV Briefing: Friday 25 July 2025
Welcome to this week’s round-up of news, commentary and industry announcements that you may have missed from the past week.
If you are looking for advice in relation to any of the issues mentioned, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
In the news
ITV reports first-half 2025 revenue, with profits down 31% (Variety)
Trump files $10bn lawsuit against Murdoch and Wall Street Journal over Epstein article (BBC)
Canal+ secures approval to acquire MultiChoice Group, Africa’s largest pay-TV group (The Hollywood Reporter)
‘Sinners’ and ‘Superman’ box office hits, but superhero and horror genres showing signs of fatigue (Variety)
Imax quarterly earnings lifted by success of ‘Sinners’ and ‘F1’ (Variety)
YouTube dominates Nielsen’s June ranking, but Netflix breaks into top 3 (Deadline)
Hollywood A-listers to descend on Venice Film Festival (The Guardian)
Features and commentary
New AI tools a gamechanger for filmmakers (The Guardian)
The best TV shows of 2025 so far (Variety)
‘Fantastic Four’ reboot receives rave early reviews (BBC)
Industry announcements
Annual PwC report sets out that global box office revenues will not return to pre-pandemic levels until 2030 (The Hollywood Reporter)
Ofcom recommends that broadcasters must work more together with global tech firms to survive (Ofcom)
Ofcom drops proposed changes to commissioning codes (PACT)
Resources
BBC content spend is up, while commissioned companies spend is down (PACT)
Legal updates
Senators introduce AI Bill to restrict unauthorised use of copyrighted works (Deadline)
Donald Trump says it is “not do-able” for AI companies to pay for all copyrighted content (Deadline)
Harvey Weinstein drops legal claims against his brother (The Hollywood Reporter)
