Banijay<\/a>, the producer of hit reality staples like Big Brother, MasterChef and Survivor, inked a deal with the Jane Turton-run All3Media, which backs shows like The Traitors and movies like Hamnet and\u00a01917, in a deal valued at $8 billion. <\/p>\n\n\tThat merger was ushered in by All3\u2019s owner, RedBird IMI, which had acquired the production company for $1.45 billion in 2024 and which paid \u20ac625 million ($725 million) to Banijay as part of the new agreement. Each company will hold a 50 percent stake in the new entity, which will take the name of Banijay.<\/p>\n
\n\tA Banijay-All3Media merger will bring together 170 creative production banners across 25 countries and produce 20,000 hours of content annually. That\u2019s a lot of reality TV programming \u2014 but, increasingly, there\u2019s more scripted projects in the mix as well. While the company will be a global giant, nearly 80 percent of All3Media\u2019s production revenues are from English-language content and the goal is to use its scale as leverage with streaming and network buyers.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe megadeal is expected to close this fall and, if it does, Zucker will be installed as chairman of the board of the combined entity. Bassetti, who has run Banijay since 2013, will operate the firm as CEO. The duo spoke with The Hollywood Reporter right as the ink dried on the merger agreement.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhere do you see the estimated $58 million in cost synergies coming from in this deal?<\/p>\n
\n\tZUCKER This is a really exciting day for both companies because it brings together two exceptional companies to create the world\u2019s largest independent media content company, with world-class IP from The Traitors to MasterChef to Big Brother to Survivor to great scripted programs like Peaky Blinders and films like Hamnet. So the opportunity to bring these two companies together with an enterprise value of $8 billion U.S. dollars, it\u2019s just a very unique opportunity and one that we\u2019re all incredibly excited about. We\u2019re excited to have Marco at the helm and lead this venture.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen you do something like this, there will be some cost synergies that come from the obvious areas like real estate and procurement and things like that. But we also think that there\u2019s revenue opportunities through this that will really allow for growth. And we really see this as a growth opportunity, and that includes better monetization of the huge catalog that comes together here, especially through All3\u2019s Little Dot Digital Studio. We think that there\u2019s huge growth opportunities in the live event space led by Banajay\u2019s Balich company.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt seems like half of all the small and medium-sized unscripted producers are in this deal, what\u2019s the vision for growth and the next step given the size of the combined company?<\/p>\n
\n\tBASSETTI The next step is to arrive to the closing, sooner than later. And then we could start to work on this. So we need to, first of all, bring the best of the two cultures of these two companies together and create value for the people that actually are working for us because we are not making any synergy on the creative side that\u2019s most, that\u2019s very important.<\/p>\n
\n\tOur goal will be to attract talent because we can give them something that nobody else can give to them to work with, to work together with many other talent to give them money to invest in creativity for new pilots, buying IP.<\/p>\n
\n\tYou have some big scripted shows, but it\u2019s not the bulk of your business. Do you see yourselves doing more now that the biggest seller in Warner Bros. is being sold?<\/p>\n
\n\tZUCKER What I would say, regardless of what else is going on out there, this combined company will have about 70 percent unscripted, 30 percent scripted. And scripted has been one of the things that we have prioritized at All3 in the less than two years that we\u2019ve owned All3, and we\u2019re incredibly bullish on that. That\u2019ll be for Marco to decide going forward what the right mix is.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s about 25 countries that the combined company operates in. Given you\u2019re such a large production giant, how do you think about where you physically produce your projects and could you talk about that across your portfolio?<\/p>\n
\n\tBASSETTI Today we live in a global industry and we see that there is a lot of production companies using different territories in order to be more efficient with tax credits, with the cost of labor, with many other stuff, and then there is some quota that has to be filled (especially in European countries), and we will do the same that we are doing now.<\/p>\n
\n\tWe have a very efficient internal service that gives us all the data in order to produce at the best cost, in the best territory and with the best crew that we could find. To be honest with you, just to go a little bit deeper, generally speaking, let\u2019s say unscripted is produced in a country that it is going to be exploited [in] while scripted can travel much more and produce in some other country.<\/p>\n
\n\tCould you speak more about the IP ownership aspect of the deal and how you look to monetize that?<\/p>\n
\n\tBASSETTI I don\u2019t know exactly the number, but we are going to launch 110 scripted shows per year and 235 unscripted shows per year. We have a huge number of FAST channels, we have a significant number also of YouTube channels. The rationale for the deal is also having strong leverage and having so many strong IP. That\u2019s the reason why we believe scale is an asset, it\u2019s not a threat today.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt feels like a couple of years ago, content suppliers were booming because there was a huge amount of money being spent on major streaming platforms. Then there was a little bit of pullback. Where do you see the landscape now given you\u2019re such a huge supplier?<\/p>\n
\n\tBASSETTI Well, let\u2019s see, because as you can see, the landscape is changing rapidly and now with the new deal, apparently, that it will be closed quite soon between Paramount and Warner maybe the landscape will change again. For us, it\u2019s important to have a very competitive landscape locally speaking and globally speaking, and we are there to serve this. But look at all this consolidation on the other side of the fence because we are not a distributor, we are a media production company. For us to have this scale it\u2019s extremely important to maintain our role to grow. <\/p>\n
\n\tGiven you have so many different banners \u2014 some of which might be similar on both sides \u2014 as part of the merger process are any of those banners likely to be sunsetted or shuttered or reconfigured?<\/p>\n
\n\tBASSETTI As I said before, we just signed, the closing is not yet done, so far we will stay as we are. The most important thing is not really the number of companies, it\u2019s the number of talent that they\u2019re working on this company. So if there are some of this talent that they prefer to work together, maybe we will do something, but so far there is no plan on this end.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd are there any areas where you\u2019d rather buy more rather than build via investments?<\/p>\n
\n\tBASSETTI I think that, on the production side we feel comfortable with what we have. If you look, let\u2019s say a business like Banijay of what we have now in live, and what I mean live, I mean immersive social and with this kind of thing, I think that we have an opportunity to grow and maybe we could grow organic or not organic. I think that we are looking also very deeply into the digital space. Assuming that the deal will be closed in 6 to 7 months, we have plenty of time to discuss about this and maybe could change strategy.<\/p>\n
\n\tDo you see a landscape with fewer buyers, especially maybe in the U.S. given the Warner-Paramount consolidation?<\/p>\n
\n\tZUCKER There may be, you know, one or two fewer buyers from the traditional legacy world. But I think that the growth in global streaming platforms and in new platforms that we don\u2019t even know about yet is something that I think is very exciting for us.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe reality is people are consuming more content than ever. They may not be doing it through the traditional ways that they\u2019ve done it for the last 50 years or the last 25 years, but the reality is, whether it\u2019s their phone or their laptop or their big screen TV or whatever it is, or whatever comes next, the demand for content \u2014 scripted, unscripted, digital \u2014 has never been greater and if you have world-class IP, you\u2019re gonna be in great shape, and that\u2019s what we have.<\/p>\n
\n\tGiven you\u2019re such a huge production giant, how do you think about incorporating AI techniques or tools into your physical production process?<\/p>\n
\n\tBASSETTI That\u2019s exactly one of the reasons that we are doing this because, you know, AI is very, very much scalable, and we have a good tool that AI can be, and you have such a big number of companies, you can create a lot of value. That\u2019s exactly right.<\/p>\n
\n\tThis interview has been edited for clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the three years since Jeff Zucker joined RedBird IMI, the former CNN chief has orchestrated a blizzard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[124396,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-502500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-banijay","9":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}