Sky UK in Talks to Acquire ITV’s Media and Entertainment Divisions
Broadband and media giant Sky UK (Comcast) is reportedly engaged in “preliminary” talks over the possible £1.6bn acquisition of ITV’s broadcasting business, specifically the company’s Media and Entertainment divisions, which include both their free-to-air TV channels and the ITV X video streaming service.
The traditional TV broadcasting business is currently coming under immense pressure from both a rise in the use of video streaming services (Netflix, Prime [Amazon], YouTube, Disney+ etc.) and the future switch-off of terrestrial TV services – expected to occur during the 2030s (licences that support DTTV are due to expire in 2034) – in favour of streaming TV channels over broadband.
Suffice to say that consolidation and innovation may help to balance against that, while such a sale would also see the pair controlling over 70% of the UK’s TV advertising market (although ITV did just forecast that its ad revenues would be 9% lower in the last quarter of 2025). According to the BBC News, such a situation might normally raise a few regulatory red flags, but the rise in competition from streaming services does tend to change that dynamic (it might now be viewed as more of a rescue deal).
Advertisement
However, the deal would not include ITV Studios, which creates a number of “popular” TV shows (Love Island, One Piece, Alan Bates vs The Post Office etc.). The news also follows shortly after Liberty Global sold off half its 10% stake in ITV, which could turn out to have been premature (i.e. if a deal is done, their stake might have ended up being worth more).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
Advertisement
Leave a Reply
Privacy Notice: Please note that news comments are anonymous, which means that we do NOT require you to enter any real personal details to post a message and display names can be almost anything you like (provided they do not contain offensive language or impersonate a real person's legal name). By clicking to submit a post you agree to storing your entries for comment content, display name, IP and email in our database, for as long as the post remains live.
Only the submitted name and comment will be displayed in public, while the rest will be kept private (we will never share this outside of ISPreview, regardless of whether the data is real or fake). This comment system uses submitted IP, email and website address data to spot abuse and spammers. All data is transferred via an encrypted (https secure) session.
This doesn’t sound like its in the best interests of the UK people so I hope it gets blocked.
agreeed as it says:
“both their free-to-air TV channels and the ITV X video streaming service”
knowing sky, they’ll have an obligation to keep at least ITV1 free to air unless they give up the PSB licence but I think silly tricks like:
-renaming some channels and locking behind a paywall
-as a result of the above, showing episodes early on said channel / ITVX premium / moving to sky max
-news being scrapped for sky news
-swallowing up any sporting rights for sky sports (6 nations rugby, ITV racing etc….)
-britbox catalogue moved into sky on demand – reuiring entertainment pack to watch
-potentially scrapping itvx alltogether and moving content to sky / now tv on demand.
It has to be said though the ‘ITV Encore’ didn’t work before so I doubt this will.
and before anyone jumps of their horses, this is all purely speculative and loosely based on events I’ve seen before (such as disney+ stipping all their content from linear/regular channels).
“news being scrapped for sky news”
I think this is a consideration. Sky News is a liability but they’re required to keep it going to keep Ofcom happy. The cost savings from merging with ITV News might make the combined entity commercially viable.
Agree.
Didn’t think of that actually.
Yes a saving there for sure.
ITN is jointly owned with other businesses so a straight merger is not an immediate option.
ITVX appears to be performing better than Now TV. The former is probably the more prominent brand so folding Now into ITVX might be the better option.
Nothing is going to happen overnight, it is ITV offering its channels to Sky – Sky won’t
have even considered what changes they might make (after all a week ago it wasn’t even an option for them).
So assuming the deal even does go through I would not expect any changes in services until spring next year at the earliest.
@Ray Woodward:
I think you will find that Sky has a clear idea of what it wants from such a deal – this has been going on for some time, with Sky previously making a move for ITV back in 2006.
My biggest concern would be that Sky would be able to bid for the “Crown Jewel” events (e.g. Wimbledon) that are required to be shown on Free To Air TV. With Comcasts financial clout they may well be able to muscle out BBC, Channel 4 & Channel 5. On the other hand some events that have been exclusively on Pay TV may find their way onto FTA, indeed Sky have previously licensed events like the World Cricket Cup final to Channel 4.
The can do all of that already, can they not? The only requirement is the events must be broadcast free to air on terrestrial TV. And Sky already have a channel on Freeview they could use to fulfill that requirement.
No because Sky’s Freeview channels are on the commercial multplexes which are not carried on most relay transmitters and therefore not universally available.
You raise a point regards Wimbledon.
Does it stipulate that *all* of Wimbledon must be FTA? I assume not.
Could see a scenario where only British matches + finals are FTA but extra matches normally on Iplayer could well fall into sky sports tennis and sky sports +.
Why not, let the monopoly swallow up more media companies up…. It will screw the consumer over even more. Not that I will use Sky services ever again since getting rid of them. Perhaps as they are now owned by an American company the Competitions Commission will do their job with this one and refuse it for approval, if they even look into it.
I do use Now TV but only keeps it as it is on constant discount, and when they expire a quick trip to cancel and it offers further discounts without having to speak with a human and sign another 18 month contract. Terrestrial TV though should be blocked from being purchased by pay service companies.
“Why not, let the monopoly swallow up more media companies up…”
What monopoly is that?
Change is coming whether you like it or not.
ITV can not survive in its current form with the continued decline in advertising revenues. At least with ITVX, the business has something to offer. If UK businesses were able to make a go of ITV as an independent UK streaming service, it would already have happened. Unfortunately, the UK is dominated by a PBS that benefits from a reliable income backed by criminal lawwhich makes it harder for independents to compete.
Terrestrial TV is coming to an end. This will perhaps see the first actions in that direction in the UK.
That PBS you mention that has funding backed by criminal law, is a PBS which also gave life to independent production companies, and spends a lot of it’s income supporting them with UK productions.
@FANNY ADAMS:
… which gives the BBC undue levels of security and dominance of the UK market, thus making it more difficult for independent businesses to thrive in the UK media delivery sector. Q.E.D.
What would happen to ITN (which is a seperate company) and provide ITV News and other ITN produced programming in this scenario? They are already owned 40% by ITV, and 20% each by Thomson Reuters, Daily Mail and General Trust, and Informa. ITN also own 20% of Independent Radio News (IRN).
A merger with Sky News/NBC would create a tv news duopoly with the BBC. It can’t survive without an independent ITV, despite contracts with Channel 4 and Channel 5.
The only ‘remedy’ would be to sell it off to Paramount (owner of Channel 5) but then 2 out of 3 tv news gathering operations would be american owned. What a mess.
I would suggest that WTN (which is what ITN is known as over the rest of the world) it would be more likely for WTN to provide Sky News in the real world.
We’ll have to wait and see …
Comcast have to continue to fund Sky News for the next 3 years as part of the conditions that were put in place when they bought Sky. Generally, they don’t really want it.
Buying ITV would give them 40% of ITN as you say. Comcast have to remain committed to news, in particular local news, if they bought ITV as it is part of ITVs remit. It wouldn’t make sense to have two news outlets. Given they never really wanted Sky new they perhaps will close it, make use of ITN for their news output on terrestrial and perhaps even outsource the Sky News channel to ITN.
But who knows, its early days yet.
@Ray Woodward, ITN is ITN as in Independent Television News Limited – it’s not WTN. It used to be one of the Owners of WTN (Worldwide Television News, which was always a separate entity) but hasn’t been since 1998 when AP bought the whole thing and merged it in with their existing APTV to create what is now branded as AP Television News. WTN and its branding hasn’t existed for decades now.
Of course let’s not forget they are not renewing the Sat licences in 2030 and by then it will all be on Sky Stream etc
@Mark:
LibertyGlobal only sold half of its stake in ITV. It cannot sell the residual holding for approximately 90 days IIRC.
It would be a shame if COMCAST were to gain control of ITV Media, given the progress the latter has made with ITVX. The brand would be front and centre in COMCAST’s global strategy, but the former invariably taints whatever they acquire. They also have an abysmal attitude towards customer service.
If COMCAST were to win control of ITV, I am guessing they may want to embark on/accelerate the migration away from linear TV, possibly shuttering channels sooner rather than later.
I hope this happens as it might mean freeview goes away and freesat is all that remains. I want freeview gone for more spectrum for 5G and Wifi. Plus anything that gets rid of that god awful dredge that is Sky News is a good thing.
Sky should buy ITV & then Comcast should divest itself from Sky.
Comcast share price is super low, ditching Sky would improve value to their shareholders etc.
I just don’t see how ITV helps Comcast in any way.
Comcast would prefer to just run sky etc from the USA and skin the output with the local branding.
They don’t see the point of having staff over here to do what they can do from over there.
Improving the value of sky & ditching it would make more sense from their perspective