Love Island, hosted by Maya Jama, is said to generate ITV’s biggest 16 to 34 audience
Love Island, hosted by Maya Jama, is said to generate ITV’s biggest 16 to 34 audience
One of the biggest takeovers in British media history is about to take place with the creation of a new British media company – albeit American owned.
Sky is expected to buy ITV’s TV and streaming channels with the announcement likely imminent, but if you don’t read the business pages, you might have missed it.
The pay-TV, broadband and mobile company, owned by the American company Comcast, has been in talks to buy ITV’s media and entertainment business including ITVX since last year.
For Sky, buying the broadcast arm of Britain’s most watched commercial public service broadcaster makes sense. It will get access to millions of people, as well as scale and prominence on a free to air platform.
It’s believed to want to create a commercial streamer that will be a true rival to the likes of Netflix and Disney Plus in the UK. But what does it mean for you?
Your favourite shows aren’t going anywhere… yet
ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK, launching in 1955 as competition for the BBC
ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK, launching in 1955 as competition for the BBC
Crucially, this takeover won’t mean your favourite ITV shows are suddenly moved behind a paywall.
Caroline Frost, TV and podcast editor at Radio Times, says ITV is required by law to provide a free-to-air service until at least 2034 due to the public service broadcasting licence.
“Gradually, though, content which might debut on free/live-to-air ITV might end up on a subscription platform,” Frost says.
In the short to medium-term, the big shows – Coronation Street, Love Island, Emmerdale, I’m a Celebrity – won’t look any different. You’ll still find them on ITV and ITVX, and they’ll still be made by ITV Studios – that’s ITV’s production arm, which owns more than 60 production companies in Britain and around the world.
They also make programmes including Line of Duty for the BBC, Rivals for Disney Plus, and America’s most streamed show, Love Island USA.
ITV Studios isn’t being bought by Sky. If the deal goes ahead, it will become a company in its own right (ITV Studios PLC), still owned by the current ITV shareholders. Part of the Sky takeover agreement is expected to be a “supply deal”, in other words, that ITV Studios continues to make those ITV shows and that they remain on ITV.
The international ITV Studios production and distribution arm is not part of the deal and will continue as a separate company
The international ITV Studios production and distribution arm is not part of the deal and will continue as a separate company
Of course, at some point Sky could decommission some ITV shows – or renegotiate their contracts. You don’t take over another company without believing there are savings to be made (and some are pointing to synergies that could be made on the tech platform side, with ITVX and Sky’s streaming services potentially merged in the future).
Longer term, Frost believes users of both current streaming platforms ITVX and NOW can expect to see more “integrated services, for example, bundling titles in terms of genre instead of channel, as a natural way to cut production costs, and to cross-advertise”.
But when it comes to programmes, they won’t be able to make significant changes to those beloved shows until the supply deal comes to an end.
Producer Patrick Spence thinks the deal is “exciting”. He won a BAFTA for Mr Bates vs The Post Office which was a huge hit on ITV in 2024, with around 15 million tuning in. He’s currently producing Two Birds, a thriller starring Sheridan Smith for ITV.
He’s also made dramas for Sky and told me ITV and Sky “are very good bedfellows in many ways”.
“When they get behind a show, they really get behind it,” Spence says. “They want to make water cooler shows that bring audiences together.”
He believes the deal is a sign that the regularly predicted end of so-called linear TV is overplayed.
“We get told so often about the death of broadcast TV,” he adds. “For producers it’s said we’re looking at a cliff edge where the only places that will be left for us to sell our programmes will be the streamers, or some version of BBC, ITV, Channel 4 all joining together.
“What I take away from this deal as a producer and an audience member is that Sky must really like and believe in ITV to be only buying the network. They think there is a business to be grown and driven that uses the audience reach and loyalty that the ITV network has.”
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I’ve picked up a nostalgia from others that ITV – one of Britain’s best known brands, which has played such an important role in shaping the culture here for decades – is being sold to the Americans.
Others ask whether passing more of the UK media to US owners is bad for Britain. Will it lead to a lack of distinctiveness in the programmes commissioned?
But Camilla Lewis, founder of Curve Media, behind Chess Masters: The End Game among other shows – argues “the streamers are realising the importance and power of parochial programme making”.
Netflix didn’t anticipate supremely British-focused drama Baby Reindeer would be so popular globally. Disney commissions Rivals, also very British in taste.
“There is a constant battle between LA and London as to what gets commissioned by the US streamers,” Lewis adds. “But there is demand for British content which has influenced commissioners.
“A Sky-ITV company would be foolish to pivot away from commissioning programmes with a national identity. It wouldn’t make business sense.”
Sport and public service broadcasting
For many, Sky is best known for its sports coverage (the majority of televised Premier League games are still shown on Sky Sports, for example, and it now has the rights to broadcast Formula 1 in the UK until 2034).
Part of the appeal of the takeover from its perspective is that, as a public service broadcaster, ITV can bid for the ‘listed’ crown jewel tournaments that have to be shown live on a free-to-air channel such as the Olympic Games, Grand National and British Grand Prix.
It’s why Wimbledon is on the BBC and why the BBC and ITV show the World Cup – which is bringing in millions of eyeballs (and – for ITV – millions in advertising revenue).
Former ITV Chairman Peter Bazalgette told me “sport is a massive driver of live viewing and advertising revenue”.
“Putting together the sports powerhouse of Sky’s football Premier League deals with the sport that is on ITV – the World Cup, the Rugby Six Nations – is probably one of the most attractive things for Comcast.”
For audiences it could also mean in future you’ll see Sky using ITV’s platforms as a shop window for programmes that are usually behind its paywall – rights-depending, perhaps a Premier League match shown free on ITV as a way to entice new subscribers to Sky platforms.
It isn’t just some of Sky’s sport offer that could turn up on ITV. You might find the first series of its Eddie Redmayne drama The Day of the Jackal there, ahead of the premiere of series two on its subscription channel. Or its comedy show Saturday Night Live UK, which could reach millions more if it was platformed on the UK’s biggest commercial broadcaster.
Coronation Street may no longer get the audiences it once did. But it is still watched by four to five million people. ITV’s top shows are still some of the best performers in the UK. Sky will be buying access to those audiences.
A Sky show like The Dyers’ Caravan Park which sees father-daughter duo Danny and Dani Dyer trying to revive the British holiday industry could potentially reach a much wider audience on ITV after this deal.
Sky Television was launched by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1989, merging with its competitor British Satellite Broadcasting the following year
Sky Television was launched by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in 1989, merging with its competitor British Satellite Broadcasting the following year
Being a public service broadcaster also means ITV (like the BBC and others) must be given a prominent position when you turn on your TV or set top box.
In an ever more competitive world, prominence matters which is why UK law says public service broadcaster TV channels and on-demand services must be easy for audiences to find and access, so at the top of electronic programme guides on TVs and smart TV home screens.
That’s another appeal for Sky. But there are prescriptive terms that come with ITV’s public service broadcasting licence, which runs until 2034.
In return for the benefits, ITV must broadcast a defined amount of national and regional news and 85% of the content it shows during its peak schedule must be original programming.
It also must commission a proportion of programmes made outside London. For the next eight years anyway, until the licence is up, none of that would change.
Who makes the news?
There is though some disquiet at ITN, which has made news bulletins for ITV ever since the channel launched in 1955.
It also now makes Good Morning Britain and its contract with ITV has just been renewed until 2031. After a takeover, Sky would have to honour that. But once it expires in five years, would it make sense for the company to have two newsrooms operating separately?
Sky News is a rolling 24-hour service. It doesn’t make regional news (an ITV strength) so there are differences. But after 2031, could ITV’s News at Ten, for example, be made by Sky News? Or indeed could ITN (which also makes Channel 4 and Channel 5 News) provide Sky’s rolling news channel?
We’re in the territory of hypotheticals and there are also questions around whether Sky will want to continue as a public service broadcaster after 2034 when ITV’s licence expires. The media landscape may look very different by then.
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