Comcast's Sky in Talks to Buy ITV Broadcasting Unit in $2.1 Billion Deal — Update

By Adria Calatayud

Comcast's Sky is in preliminary talks to buy ITV's broadcasting arm for 1.6 billion pounds ($2.10 billion) including debt, ITV said, opening the door to a deal that would shake up the U.K. media landscape.

Shares in British broadcaster ITV jumped on the news, climbing as much as 16% in European morning trade Friday and erasing their losses in the year to date.

A potential deal would bulk up Comcast's footprint in the U.K., where it already owns pay-TV operator Sky, and leave ITV focused on its studios operations.

"There can be no certainty as to the terms upon which any potential sale may be agreed or whether any transaction will take place," ITV said.

Comcast and Sky didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Legacy media companies on both sides of the Atlantic are turning to dealmaking to reshape their portfolios after the rise of streaming and new media platforms heated up competition for audiences and advertising spending.

An acquisition of ITV's media-and-entertainment segment, which generated revenue of 2.1 billion pounds last year, would increase the weight of international media in Comcast's revenue mix at a time the group is under pressure from subscriber losses in its crucial domestic broadband business. The unit houses traditional TV operations as well as a streaming service called ITVX.

Sky recently agreed to sell its business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to Bertelsmann's RTL Group for up to 527 million euros ($608.6 million). Sky's parent company, Comcast, is in the process of spinning off NBCUniversal cable channels into a company named Versant.

Comcast bought Sky for $39 billion in 2018, prevailing in a monthslong bidding war with what was then known as 21st Century Fox.

For ITV, a potential sale of its broadcasting business would come after years of dealmaking speculation, which mainly related to its content-production arm.

ITV had a market value of about 2.5 billion pounds as of Thursday's close. Its revenue last year was split roughly equally between its two segments--its media-and-entertainment business and its studios arm--a shift from a decade ago, when broadcasting accounted for about two-thirds of the group's revenue and studios for the remaining one third.

As recently as July, ITV Chief Executive Carolyn McCall played down reports about interest from French peer Banijay Group in a potential acquisition of ITV Studios, but said the group would keep its structure under review.

"In our industry, at the moment, everyone is talking to everyone," McCall said during an earnings call in July. "Whether that's about partnerships, whether that's about content partnerships, commercial partnerships, everyone is talking to everyone, so there's nothing further really to be said on that."

McCall said ITV saw benefits in an integrated model combining a broadcasting unit and a production business to feed its own platforms or sell content to third parties, but that it was open to changes.

ITV's advertising revenue has been hit in recent years by a shift away from traditional media channels. Meanwhile, its ITVX platform has expanded rapidly, and the company said in July it had already recouped its entire investment after the service broke even two years ago.

Write to Adria Calatayud at adria.calatayud@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 07, 2025 05:10 ET (10:10 GMT)