Sky, the pay TV and media company owned by Comcast, announced that it will acquire the media and entertainment business of the British television network ITV for a transaction amount of 1.6 billion pounds. After the completion of the merger, the company formed by the two parties will surpass YouTube in terms of local viewing share in the UK, becoming the second largest media service provider after the BBC. Under the agreement, ITV's traditional broadcast channels and ITVX streaming service will continue to be free-to-air, and user viewing patterns will not fundamentally change in the short term.
Negotiations for the deal have been underway since November 2025 and both parties have now agreed on key terms. Under the deal, Sky will pay ITV £1.2 billion in cash and transfer its production company Love Productions (which produces shows such as The Great British Bake Off) to ITV. In addition, Sky will pay ITV an additional £200 million in 2028, but this portion of the consideration will be subject to meeting agreed advertising revenue targets.
The acquisition does not include ITV Studios, ITV's production arm. However, as part of the deal, Sky has committed to investing £2.1bn over the next five years to procure content from ITV Studios, ensuring ITV continues to play an important role in the content production and supply chain.
ITV is currently the UK's largest commercial television broadcaster, with a weekly audience of approximately 40 million people and approximately 16.5 million monthly digital platform users. After these viewers are included in Sky platform data, the combined media group will account for around 20% of UK household TV viewing, placing it second in the overall media consumption market.
According to previous reports, YouTube became the "second largest" media service platform in the UK last year, second only to the BBC. This status not only comes from the high reliance on YouTube by Generation Alpha (young users), but BBC data also shows that the time spent watching YouTube by people over 55 years old has doubled compared with a few years ago. But after Sky acquires ITV and integrates its media and entertainment businesses, Sky+ITV's combined viewership will be slightly higher than YouTube, pushing the latter into third place and the BBC still retaining the top spot.
In a joint statement issued by both parties, traditional media companies expressed clear concerns about the impact of Internet platforms such as YouTube. The statement pointed out that the British media market is undergoing "profound and rapid transformation", and as the competition for audiences becomes more fierce, "scale" becomes a key factor in competing with global streaming giants and platforms such as YouTube. Through this transaction, Sky and ITV hope to create a "commercial streaming media champion" for the UK market, integrating content, advertising and distribution channels to establish closer synergy between traditional broadcasting and streaming media.