The duty fight has moved to the high street — but online has not been told it is safe

Eight days to the Budget and the machine games duty fight now has British gambling’s loudest voices on the record — while ITV and Sky’s deadline to answer the Culture Secretary falls today.

Top five

• Ninety Labour MPs want machine games duty at 40% — and the Betting and Gaming Council has called it “deeply misguided”, eight days out from the 28 October Budget.
• Today is the deadline for ITV and Sky to respond to Lisa Nandy’s “minded to intervene” letter on the £1.6bn Media & Entertainment deal.
• Ofcom’s chair and chief executive appear before the DCMS Committee today, with broadcasting standards and the under-16s social media ban on the agenda.
• Digital Cinema Media reports 10% year-on-year revenue growth and doubles its Manchester operation under a new regional managing director.
• ITV says the Big Brother brand has passed 202 million ITVX streams, with the 16–34 audience up 68% across the current series — ITV’s own figures, not independently verified.

The duty fight has moved to the high street — but online has not been told it is safe

The sharpest UK story for anyone buying gambling media this week is a tax fight that has, on the surface, nothing to do with online. On Monday, iGaming Business reported that ninety Labour MPs, led by Alex Ballinger, had written to Chancellor John Healey asking for machine games duty on Category B gaming machines to rise to 40%, with B3 machines in adult gaming centres the specific target. The letter leaned on Social Market Foundation polling finding 43% of voters support higher taxes on slot machines in high street betting shops, and argued the rise would be “popular, targeted and proportionate” — and would spare pubs, which cannot offer Category B machines.

The industry answered the same day. SBC News reported Betting and Gaming Council chief executive Grainne Hurst calling the proposal “deeply misguided”, on the argument that over 600 betting shops have already closed or announced closure since the last Budget’s duty rises. Both outlets cite the same Ernst & Young modelling for the BGC, though with slightly different rounding: iGaming Business, quoting Entain chief executive Stella David, puts it at up to 1,470 shop closures, 15,900 lost jobs and a net Exchequer loss of around £120m, while SBC News reports roughly 1,500 shops, 34 casinos, up to 16,000 jobs and £124m. Treat the shape — four figures of shop closures, five figures of jobs, a Treasury that may end up worse off — rather than any single number, as the claim being made.

Analysis. Here is the part that matters for an online bingo and casino buyer, and it is a point about what has not been said. iGaming Business, citing the Financial Times, reports the Chancellor is weighing a rise aimed at betting shops and adult gaming centres. Remote and online gaming are not named in that reporting. That is not the same as online being cleared. Remote gaming duty already went from 21% to 40% on 1 April 2026, and general betting duty is set to rise from 15% to 25% on 1 April 2027 — a rise the bosses of Entain, Flutter UK & Ireland, bet365, Bally’s, evoke and Betfred have jointly asked the Chancellor to pause. Online has taken its increase and is now being asked to absorb another in eighteen months’ time. Nothing in the current reporting confirms a further online measure on 28 October, and nothing rules one out. Plan Q4 and Q1 on the basis that the online position is unconfirmed, not settled.

Market, audiences and spend

Cinema is the quiet performer. Prolific North reports Digital Cinema Media grew revenue 10% year on year in 2026, selling what it says is about 85% of the UK cinema advertising market across almost 3,500 screens at over 500 sites. Incoming regional managing director Charles Reid pointed to 2026’s strong box office, naming The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Publishing is going the other way. VideoWeek reports Reach’s Q3 total revenue down 14.1% and digital revenue down 20.3%, which the publisher attributes to declining Google referrals, while Metro plans to cut 61 jobs. The contrast with last week’s IPA Bellwether reading — a net balance of +14.3% of marketers increasing budgets, the strongest since Q2 2024 — is worth holding in mind: budgets are growing, but they are not flowing evenly, and open-web display is visibly not where they are going.

Deadline day on Sky-ITV, and nobody buying Q1 can price the outcome

Today is the day ITV and Sky must respond to the Culture Secretary. VideoWeek reports that Lisa Nandy told Parliament on Thursday 15 October she is “minded to intervene” in Sky’s £1.6bn acquisition of ITV’s Media & Entertainment division, citing plurality of views in news media, plurality of persons controlling media enterprises, and the availability of a wide range of high-quality on-demand programming. She noted that the Enterprise Act 2002 “was drafted at a time where viewing was largely via broadcast linear channels” and does not reach streaming or on-demand — a gap she would need legislation to close.

Prolific North reports her concerns extend to Northern audiences, audiences in the UK’s other nations, and viewers from lower socio-economic backgrounds who rely on broadcast news. The deal covers ITV’s free-to-air channels and ITVX but excludes ITV Studios. If an intervention notice follows, Ofcom would assess the public interest considerations and the Competition and Markets Authority would examine competition effects.

Analysis. No decision had been published at the time of writing — Ofcom’s news centre showed nothing later than 16 October, and ITV plc’s newsroom was unreachable from here this morning, so treat the position as live rather than resolved. The practical problem for buyers is not the eventual verdict but the length of the shadow. An intervention notice starts an Ofcom and CMA process measured in months, and the Culture Secretary has floated primary legislation on top. That means the ownership of the sales house behind ITV’s inventory is an open question through the Q1 negotiating season. Separately, Advanced Television reports Ofcom chair Sir Ian Cheshire and chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes appear before the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee today, with online safety, broadcasting standards and the proposed under-16s social media ban expected. Worth a transcript read: Ofcom would be the body assessing any ITV-Sky public interest test.

Clients on the move

• McCann Manchester has won BrewDog’s creative account as the brand relaunches under Tilray Brands ownership. A “Choose Craft” platform rolls out this week across out-of-home, paid digital, grocery and on-trade, owned channels and creator content. The incumbent was not named and no account value was given.
• Manchester’s One Day Agency has taken its Cineworld brief pan-European, expanding into Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Israel on the back of a Cinema City pilot in Poland. Cineworld’s international digital marketing director Carla Bradford said centralising strategy across territories “has proven immensely valuable”. No figures were disclosed.
• Debenhams has gone early with a four-minute Christmas film, made in-house with Pulse Films and planned and bought by SMB Agency. Chief executive Dan Finley said customers are “thinking about and planning for Christmas earlier this year”. No spend was disclosed.

People

• Charles Reid joins Digital Cinema Media as regional managing director in Manchester after fifteen years at Carat UK, most recently as client managing director. DCM chief revenue officer Davina Barker said he is “loved by agencies and brands alike”. Four further hires double the regional office, per Prolific North.
• Mary Basterfield has been appointed chief financial officer at Channel 4, and Adam Gerhart promoted to global chief client officer at WPP, both reported by VideoWeek.
• The NUJ says it is “dismayed” at the axing of Radio 4’s You and Yours, the only live daily programme the BBC makes for the network outside London, with eleven post closures facing Radio 4 teams in Salford. The union points to a “doom spiral” of cuts; Prolific North names no BBC spokesperson and the corporation’s stated reason was not reported.

Online and connected TV

ITV says the Big Brother brand has passed 202 million streams on ITVX, with the current series of Big Brother and Big Brother: The Group Chat at 37 million streams, up 58% on the equivalent point in 2025. The 14 October episode drew 762,000 viewers and the 18 October episode delivered the series’ biggest 16–34 audience so far at 193,000 across ITV2 and ITVX, with the 16–34 audience up 68% across the run. These are ITV’s own figures as reported by Advanced Television and have not been independently verified against BARB.

Channel 4 launches its first branded microdrama on 24 October: The Guest List, a five-part vertical series running on Channel 4’s Meta, TikTok and YouTube channels, with Sol de Janeiro as brand partner, produced by curly media and brokered by Zenith UK. Channel 4’s head of advertiser strategy Sam Hicks framed it as “finding new and creative ways to bring brands and audiences together”.

Also from VideoWeek’s week in review: Channel 4 Sales has launched “Instant Re4ch”, guaranteeing peak spots across Channel 4, Paramount, UKTV and Narrative linear channels on the same evening, with 48-hour boost campaigns on streaming. The Channel 4 Sales site was unreachable from here this morning, so that detail is second-hand via VideoWeek and worth confirming with your C4 contact before you plan against it. And BBC News began live-streaming its news channel on YouTube in the UK and US on 15 October — a trial, per the BBC, with director of AI, innovation and growth Anjali Kapoor saying audiences expect news “wherever they are”.

Gambling advertising

The National Audit Office is to review the fourth National Lottery licence, examining whether Gambling Commission and DCMS oversight is adequate to maximise returns to good causes across the licence to 2034. SBC News reports Allwyn committed to doubling good causes funding from £30m to £60m a week, around £3.2bn a year; contributions in 2025 were about £1.7bn against a Camelot peak of £1.9bn, and the April–June 2026 quarter raised £377.2m. The assessment is due in spring 2027.

On the ASA’s most recent published rulings, dated 14 October, the one with the sharpest read for bonus-led advertisers is against HRY Games t/a AI Scorecast: a Facebook ad for a football results app was found socially irresponsible and misleading because it implied users making “informed” gambling decisions would be likely to profit. The principle travels well beyond apps — any creative implying that skill, data or a bonus makes a win probable is in the same territory. The Gambling Commission’s news listing carried nothing newer than 7 October, when three land-based casino operators were reported as paying £5m over anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures; the full notice was not retrievable from here, so the operators are not named above.

Media buying view

• Build the 28 October Budget into your Q1 gambling plans now, with a defined cut-point. The reporting names betting shops and adult gaming centres, not online — so treat the online position as unconfirmed rather than cleared, and agree with the client this week which Q1 commitments can be unwound and which cannot, rather than discovering it on Budget afternoon.
• Do not sign long ITV commitments through the Q1 round without a review clause. With the deadline falling today and an Ofcom and CMA process potentially starting behind it, the sales house’s ownership is unresolved for months — price that uncertainty into the deal rather than assuming it resolves before you need to trade.
• Audit every bonus-led creative against the AI Scorecast principle before the next ASA batch lands. If a line implies that information, skill or an offer makes winning likely, rewrite it now; the ASA publishes weekly and the cost of a ruling is the campaign, not the fine.