Sky’s ITV Deal Gives U.K. Producers Hope But U.S. TV Distribution Could See Adverse Ripple Effect

New Delhi, India Jul 7, 2026 ALN: “ITV Studios is not for sale,” Carolyn McCall, boss of U.K. media conglomerate ITV, firmly told three years ago. Despite persistent rumors that the global production powerhouse was going to be snapped up, including potentially by Banijay or RedBird IMI, McCall has stayed true to her word.

What few could have imagined back then was that ITV itself was for sale. On Monday, after months of negotiations, McCall confirmed that the 71-year-old public service broadcaster is set to be acquired by Comcast-owned Sky in a deal worth up to $2.1 billion. McCall admitted it was ITV who approached Sky, stating it was “the company at the top of the list” to partner with.

Of course, there is every chance ITV Studios will still be sold, despite McCall’s plans for it to stand alone as a listed company on the London Stock Exchange, with buyers already said to be circling. The Sky/ITV deal will need to get past regulators, a process McCall admitted could take up to two years.

But for now, it seems yet another U.K. broadcaster has slipped out of British hands, following in the footsteps of fellow PSB Channel 5, which was acquired by Viacom in 2014, and Sky itself, which was acquired by Comcast in 2018.

Somewhat surprisingly, those at the coalface are pragmatic, if not actively upbeat, about the proposition of Sky taking over ITV. “I may be in a small minority here, but I’m actually quite positive about the merger,” said one executive, the CEO of an independent production company, who spoke on condition of anonymity. One reason for the optimism is that ITV commissions so much from its own stable of production companies at the expense of others that “not many indies bother pitching to ITV anymore.” Sky, said the executive, is “more approachable.”

With ITV Studios being spun off and Sky potentially taking over commissioning, there might be more opportunity for independent production companies in the long term. In the short term, it’s less promising, given one of the deal terms includes a commitment from Sky to spend £2.1 billion on ITV Studios content over the next five years.

Producer Patrick Spence, who made the award-winning ITV series “Mr Bates vs The Post Office,” was equally positive, telling the BBC he saw the deal as a vote of confidence in linear TV. “What I take away from this deal as a producer and an audience member is that Sky must really like and believe in ITV to be only buying the network,” he said. “They think there is a business to be grown and driven that uses the audience reach and loyalty that the ITV network has.”

This sentiment was echoed by Sheldon Lazarus, head of Fulwell-owned factual production outfit Bitachon365. “I’m not worried at all,” Lazarus told of the deal’s potential impact on producers. “It’s a real testimony to the creativity of this country, because otherwise, why else would you buy a platform like this?”

Lazarus recalls similar hand-wringing over what was then Viacom’s acquisition of Channel 5, noting: “I think we’ve sort of moved on from that.” Three years after that sale, analysts noted Channel 5 boasted “an increased content spend, development of new titles and clarity as to its targeted audience.”

Now, more than a decade on, the channel continues to thrive, hitting a three-year high content spend in 2024 while its peers slashed budgets.

Sir Peter Bazalgette, former chair of ITV, is adamant that consolidation is now the only way for PSBs to survive as they try to compete with U.S. giants such as Google, Disney, and Netflix. “Domestic broadcasters across Europe are under considerable pressure from not just the streamers, but also from YouTube,” he told.

The figures bear that out. According to U.K. ratings body BARB, Sky and ITV’s combined share of U.K. TV and streaming viewing was 17.7% in May, compared to YouTube’s 18.6%.

Bazalgette said it was a situation that U.K. regulators, led by the government, are beginning to accept, which is why the Sky/ITV deal will almost certainly get through. While Bazalgette acknowledged that together Sky and ITV may dominate the market for television advertising, with a combined share of around 70%, “the reality of how the market operates is nothing to do with that,” he said, with video advertising now fragmented across YouTube, Meta, TikTok, and other platforms. In that context, Sky and ITV’s joint share represents only a 20 to 30% market share.

Bazalgette thinks the deal may prove to be equally beneficial for audiences, given that Sky is one of the U.K.’s most dominant pay TV sports broadcasters. “You’re putting free-to-air sport together with pay sport,” he explained. “You could get much more advantageous windowing for viewers.”

For Sky, sharing its sports content with ITV could be win-win, benefiting from the advertising revenue while potentially funnelling viewers towards its pay-TV packages. During a press call, Sky CEO Dana Strong confirmed, “We want to put more sport into free [to-air].”

The indie CEO speculated there would also likely be a cross-over of content at some point, with Sky potentially using ITV as a “shop window” for its pay-TV offering.

Conversely, some viewers expressed concern they might see their favorite ITV shows such as soap opera “Coronation Street” and dating show “Love Island” end up behind a paywall. However, Bazalgette said he doesn’t think “there’s going to be huge change for viewers,” partly because ITV has a PSB broadcast licence, which runs through to 2034, meaning it has explicit obligations about domestic and regional commissioning.

It’s a question troubling Stewart Purvis, former CEO of ITV’s contracted news producer ITN and Ofcom partner for Content and Standards. While Strong has committed to keeping the newsrooms separate at least until 2030, when ITV’s contract with ITN runs out, Purvis remains circumspect. “It’s all very well to say these contracts exist, but do they necessarily stop a merger [of the newsrooms]?”

To complicate matters further, ITV owns a 40% stake in ITN, which it says will be split between Sky and ITV Studios, a factor that also concerns Purvis. “I’m going to be pushing the competition authorities to understand what safeguards can be done,” he said.

Purvis was keen to clarify he is not “anti-American” but maintained it would be far from ideal to have the majority of the U.K.’s PSBs owned by U.S. companies, particularly given the U.S. media landscape is itself so volatile.

Although two U.S.-owned PSBs may not seem like a lot, that number represents 50% of U.K.-wide PSBs. The remaining two – Channel 4 and the BBC – are both publicly owned and facing uncertain futures.

It’s perhaps why shortly after unveiling the deal, McCall was given a grilling by financial and trade journalists during a media call, who demanded her thoughts on everything from the “Americanization” of British TV to why companies are leaving the London Stock Exchange.

In the U.K. media, the initial reaction to the Sky/ITV deal was certainly on the gloomy side: more consolidation and more U.S. imperialism, alongside potentially fewer companies trading on the London Stock Exchange and fewer jobs, which Philippa Childs, head of crew union Bectu, addressed in a statement demanding “assurances that there will not be cuts to jobs or terms.”