Published July 6Edited July 8
As contestants on reality TV show Love Island dillydally in their pursuit of love, the broadcasting network they call home has a new relationship to think about. After months of talks, Comcast’s Sky has agreed to buy ITV’s TV and streaming business for £1.6 billion. While the show’s creator, ITV Studios, will remain a stand-alone company, the blockbuster deal completely rewrites the script for Britain’s media market.
The deal will see Sky take control of the ITVX streaming platform and ITV’s free-to-air channels, leaving the studio operations separate. The newly independent production house will enter into a five-year £2.1 billion ($2.8 billion) supply agreement with Sky to “support continued investment in British programming.”
The aim is to create a “commercial streaming champion for the U.K.” to rival the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube, as the new entity’s combined reach would account for around 20% of all in-home viewing in the U.K., second to the BBC and ahead of YouTube, according to Sky.
“The U.K. media market is undergoing a profound and rapid transformation, and as competition for audiences intensifies, scale matters more than ever in order to compete with global streaming giants and YouTube in the U.K.,” Sky said in a statement.
Of course, Sky is owned by U.S. giant Comcast — which, in another major announcement last week, said it would spin off NBCUniversal and Sky in a move that would create a separate streaming and entertainment-focused company to better compete with, you guessed it, the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and YouTube.
The acquisition will likely be heavily scrutinized by Britain’s competition authorities and is not expected to close until at least next year.
