{"id":267447,"date":"2025-11-07T09:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T09:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/267447\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T09:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T09:11:12","slug":"itv-in-talks-to-sell-television-business-to-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/267447\/","title":{"rendered":"ITV in talks to sell television business to Sky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Faarea MasudBusiness reporter<\/p>\n

\"AlamyAlamy<\/p>\n

ITV has said it is in “preliminary” discussions to sell its broadcasting business to Sky for \u00a31.6bn, a move that could reshape the UK’s television landscape.<\/p>\n

The talks focus on ITV’s Media and Entertainment division, which includes its free-to-air TV channels as well as the ITV X streaming service.<\/p>\n

The discussions with Sky, which is owned by US-based Comcast, come as the television industry faces fierce competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+.<\/p>\n

The deal would not include ITV’s production arm – ITV Studios – which makes popular programmes such as Love Island and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, ITV forecast that its advertising revenue would be 9% lower in the last three months of 2025, with advertisers cautious ahead of expected tax rises in the Budget.<\/p>\n

Comcast, which owns Universal Studios, bought Rupert Murdoch’s Sky in 2018 and is a major player in the US media landscape. <\/p>\n

It owns NBCUniversal, which contains the NBC and CNBC channels, DreamWorks Animation and streaming service Peacock.<\/p>\n

Media analyst Ian Whittaker told the BBC’s Today programme that a combination of Sky and ITV would mean they had “70% plus” of the UK TV advertising market, which he said “in normal circumstances” would be rejected by regulators because of the dominance it would give them.<\/p>\n

But he added that with questions hanging over the future of TV, a takeover could be seen as almost a rescue deal.<\/p>\n

Mr Whittaker said streaming was where the growth was for broadcasters – even though with established streamers “the penetration rates have started to level off in the past couple of years” in the UK. <\/p>\n

He added that competition was also now coming from YouTube TV, which showed live events such as sports and news.<\/p>\n

A recent report<\/a> from media regulator Ofcom found that YouTube has become the UK’s second most-watched media service, behind only the BBC.<\/p>\n

Big live sporting events, traditionally shown on television, may also increasingly move to streamers as sporting giants such as UEFA seek to cash in on the huge streaming market.<\/a><\/p>\n

ITV Studios, which makes programmes for several platforms including the BBC, Netflix and Amazon, has reportedly been the subject of takeover talks in the past. <\/p>\n

It made the hit TV series Alan Bates vs The Post Office, and popular anime series One Piece on Netflix.<\/p>\n

News of the takeover talks prompted an 18% jump in ITV’s share price on Friday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faarea MasudBusiness reporter Alamy ITV has said it is in “preliminary” discussions to sell its broadcasting business to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-267447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}