ITV voluntarily sold itself to Sky, says CEO

An interesting development has emerged in the Sky-ITV takeover. It’s now been revealed that ITV willingly sold itself to Sky in order to save the broadcaster, according to an interview by Broadcast with ITV’s group CEO (and my old boss), Carolyn McCall.

This is certainly an unusual decision, as you surely wouldn’t think that a private company would anything to do with a PSB* let alone wanting to help them out!

It makes you wonder what Sky had to offer that was so enticing to ITV to start up a takeover deal. Apart from the financial benefits, obviously. Comcast has certainly splashed the cash on Sky since they took it over back in 2018, not that Sky lacked the capital then.

Maybe siding with private firms is the way forward in the transitional phase we currently find ourselves in. We’ve already seen examples in France where TF1 and France Télévisions have formed alliances with Netflix and Prime Video respectively. And even ITV themselves signed a deal with Disney+ to have some of its content on their platform.

Maybe that’s the only way for PSBs to continue existing - get onside with a bigger company who will eventually usurp them, and hopefully reap the benefits at the other end

*PSB = public service broadcaster