Sky Agrees to Buy ITV's Broadcast and Streaming Unit for £1.6 Billion, Ending 70 Years of ITV as a Unified Broadcaster

Since Reuters reported the agreed terms on June 24, 2026, the Sky-ITV deal has moved from rumor to near-announcement, with lawyers finalizing documents and a formal announcement widely expected in early July, according to the Sunday Times.

The structure of the deal involves important distinctions that have been blurred in some headlines.

What Sky Is Actually Buying

Sky is acquiring ITV's Media and Entertainment division: the linear TV channels and the ITVX streaming platform. That's it. The £1.6 billion headline price covers that unit, per Reuters. A performance earn-out of roughly £200 million is attached, meaning the total could reach close to £1.8 billion if the acquired business hits financial targets.

ITV Studios, the production arm that generated more than half of ITV plc's £4.1 billion in annual revenues in 2025 according to The Guardian, is NOT part of the acquisition. It will be separated into a standalone publicly listed company, ITV Studios PLC, still owned by current ITV shareholders.

As a side transaction, ITV Studios is expected to acquire Sky's Love Productions, the company behind The Great British Bake Off and The Piano, for between £80 million and £120 million, according to sources cited by Reuters and confirmed by ExchangeWire.

The Market's Reaction

ITV shares rose 2.9% on the Thursday following Reuters' initial report, per ppc.land, giving the combined ITV plc a market capitalization of approximately £3.1 billion. That puts the broadcasting unit at roughly half the group's total market cap, which tracks the deal math.

What This Means for Viewers

The BBC's Culture and Media Editor reports that ITV is legally required to provide a free-to-air service until at least 2034 under its public service broadcasting licence. Caroline Frost, TV and podcast editor at Radio Times, told the BBC that Coronation Street, Love Island, Emmerdale, and I'm a Celebrity won't look any different in the near term.

Sky has also committed to spending £2 billion on ITV Studios content over the next five years, according to The Guardian. That figure is not new money; it continues an existing commercial arrangement, per a source cited by The Guardian. The commitment is structured to stabilize the production pipeline and ensure the shows that define ITV's schedule keep getting made.

Longer term, Frost told the BBC, viewers of ITVX and Sky's NOW platform can expect the two streaming services to move toward integrated, bundled offerings, likely organized by genre rather than channel brand.

The Regulatory Fight Ahead

The strongest concern critics raise is straightforward. Comcast, an American telecom giant, would end up controlling a substantial share of UK commercial television advertising. The Guardian reports that a combined Sky-ITV ad sales operation could hand Comcast more than 70% of the UK television advertising market. A single US-owned entity controlling 70% of TV ad inventory in Britain is a structural question that goes beyond corporate efficiency arguments, and it is the concern that is expected to put the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in motion.

Ofcom has its own lane of concern. Sky News would inherit ITV's 40% stake in ITN, the production house behind ITV News, Channel 4 News, and 5 News. One owner holding a stake in multiple national news operations raises editorial independence questions that Ofcom is expected to examine closely, according to The Guardian.

Both regulators have NOT yet announced formal proceedings. No investigation has been opened as of July 5, 2026. The deal hasn't even been publicly announced by the companies. ITV and Sky spokespeople declined to comment to Reuters; Comcast did not respond.

Sky's Strategic Logic

Sky's goal is clear. ITVX had 16.5 million monthly active users in 2025, up from 14.7 million in 2024, per The Guardian. That scale of free, ad-supported streaming is exactly what Sky needs to build a UK-native competitor to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+. Buying ITVX instead of building a rival service is faster and cheaper.

For Comcast, the parent company, this follows a consistent playbook of acquiring content distribution infrastructure in markets where it already has a footprint. Sky itself was acquired by Comcast in 2018.

What Remains Unresolved

The separation of ITV Studios from the broadcast channels is structurally unprecedented in ITV's 70-year history, per ppc.land. ITV has operated as a vertically integrated broadcaster since 1955. Splitting production from distribution creates two companies that will have commercial interests that don't always align, and the supply deal guaranteeing continued ITV Studios production for Sky's channels will eventually expire and require renegotiation.

The CMA's posture on the 70% ad market concentration figure is the single biggest variable that could reshape or block this transaction. Analysts cited by The Guardian predicted heavy job losses from operational duplication, but those projections depend entirely on a deal that regulators haven't yet cleared.