Why it is taking so long for ITV and Sky to merge is a mystery.
Since talks began, America’s Paramount Skydance muscled Netflix out of the way to secure an £82billion takeover of Warner Bros Discovery.
Earlier this week, All3Media, erstwhile partner for ITV Studios, forged a £3.8billion deal with Paris-based Banijay, home of the smash hit The Traitors franchise.
A difficulty faced by chief executive Carolyn McCall, as she seeks to reshape ITV for the streaming age, is regulation.
As a public service broadcaster built on regional outlets absorbed over the years, ownership would require taking on these local broadcast obligations.
There are also complex political and competition issues which might arise over combining Sky’s semi-independent news operations with those of ITV.
Uncertainty: Financial results for ITV came in better than expected but there was no escaping the fact that advertising revenues were down 5% and pre-tax profits subsided by 35%
This is not unique to Britain. Bringing together the Harry Potter studios controlled by Warner Bros and Channel 5-owner Paramount is not that tricky.
But a battle royal is underway over the fate of 24-hour news pioneers CNN, headed by former BBC and New York Times boss Mark Thompson, and CBS, which will fall under the control of the Trump-friendly Ellison family at Paramount.
Normally one might expect the Federal Communications Commission to be all over this.
In Trump world, the lines between independent regulators and politics have been blurred, if not obliterated.
While we wait for ITV and Comcast-owned Sky to consummate a deal, ITV is seeking to make the best of circumstances where linear broadcasting is a minnow in a world of whales.
It is not just the streamers and diminished cable and satellite channels eating the advertising cake. Mass market social media, notably YouTube and TikTok, are in on the act.
I received a reminder of changing times when a friend, formerly a high-level executive at a transnational firm, revealed that he regards YouTube as an authoritative news source.
Another pal, with a lifetime of political reporting, has made Elon Musk’s X his home turf. As Bob Dylan declared, The Times They Are A-Changin’.
On conventional metrics, 2025 was a down year for ITV, caught between the sunny uplands of the Euros and next year’s World Cup. The bigger the events, the better the consumer market advertising possibilities.
Fifa, in its wisdom, has gifted terrestrial television a record number of games this summer. English and Scottish teams are hungry as ever to succeed.
Financial results for ITV came in slightly better than expected but there was no escaping the fact that advertising revenues were down 5 per cent and pre-tax profits subsided by 35 per cent to £338million.
On the brighter side ITV Studios, home to Love Island and The Lady, is growing and if the ITV-Sky deal were to be done, it aims to stay as an independent listed firm.
How long that will last in a world of private equity ghouls and media conglomerates is less predictable.
McCall’s greatest feat has been to make the transition to streaming through ITV X in the face of sceptical, short-horizon shareholders who baulked at the cost.
Yet that may prove the jewel as ITV navigates its way through the maze of a creative industry in permanent revolution.
Fast tracking
Britain’s insurers find it hard to compete for headlines with the glamorous world of the silver and digital screens.
Nevertheless, transformation of Aviva under the guidance of Amanda Blanc, is remarkable.
A 25 per cent rise in operating profits to £2.2billion reflects the company’s success in vacuuming up pensions, wealth management and car and home cover.
Investors were assured by Blanc that she doesn’t expect self-driving cars to disrupt the current car market until the 2040s.
In the meantime, the hopelessness of the NHS is driving ever more corporate clients to seek health insurance, one of the faster expanding lines.
Aviva owns 325 years of claims data, which together with 22m customers, is proving fertile ground for digital transformation with calculations, once the preserve of actuaries now done in milliseconds
If AI means less waiting on the phone and easier online navigation for consumers – bring it on.
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