Britain’s ITV said today it is in preliminary talks with Comcast-owned pay-TV company Sky over a \u00a31.6 billion sale of its media and entertainment division, sparking a sharp rise in the broadcaster’s shares.<\/p>\n
ITV’s M&E, comprising its free-to-air channels and ITVX streaming platform, has been hit by ad market weakness.<\/p>\n
Combining M&E with Sky would create bigger scale in streaming to compete with global players such as Netflix, Amazon and Disney, a person close to the talks said, adding the two groups also had a deep understanding of British audiences across sport, entertainment, drama and news.<\/p>\n
Shares in ITV, which have traded around the levels they were 13 years ago, were up 15% to 78 pence today.<\/p>\n
Analysts at UBS said the deal would require regulatory approval given it would mean the UK’s largest commercial public broadcaster being owned by a non-UK company and because Comcast already owns Sky, Britain’s largest pay-TV group.<\/p>\n
ITV’s total market capitalisation was \u00a32.53 billion yesterday, the day before the talks, which were first reported by Bloomberg, became public. The price tag being discussed includes debt, ITV said in a statement.<\/p>\n
ITV also owns a Studios production business, which makes shows including “Coronation Street” for its own channels and dramas for broadcasters including the BBC, Netflix and Apple TV.<\/p>\n
ITV said there was no certainty about terms or whether a deal would be agreed.<\/p>\n
Sky declined to comment.<\/p>\n
ITV had warned this week that its ad revenue would be 9% lower in the last quarter of 2025, reflecting pullback by advertisers who are concerned about the macro-economic environment in Britain.<\/p>\n
The group has focused on investing in its Studios business and its streaming platform to offset advertising volatility in linear broadcasting, where audiences are shrinking.<\/p>\n
ITV has long been subject to takeover speculation, with a focus in recent years on its Studios.<\/p>\n
Carolyn McCall, ITV CEO since 2018, said in July that there were frequent industry conversations over potential deals.<\/p>\n
“This whole sector, everyone talks to everyone, and everyone is talking to everyone. And you know that the board will keep all options under review,” she said.<\/p>\n
Reuters reported earlier this year that ITV held early-stage talks with Abu Dhabi-backed group RedBird IMI about a possible merger of their respective production businesses.<\/p>\n
French media group Banijay was also reported to have held discussions about a possible offer for ITV’s Studios business or a full takeover.<\/p>\n
The M&E division made revenue of \u00a3955m and adjusted earnings before interest, tax and amortisation of \u00a335m in the six months to the end of June, ITV said in July.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain’s ITV said today it is in preliminary talks with Comcast-owned pay-TV company Sky over a \u00a31.6 billion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,282],"class_list":["post-126728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}