Sky, owned by US telecoms group Comcast, has agreed to buy ITV's media and entertainment business for £1.6bn, concluding negotiations that began publicly in November 2025. The deal, confirmed on 6 July 2026 through a regulatory filing, restructures one of the UK's oldest commercial broadcasters and significantly reshapes the competitive landscape of British television.

The transaction's structure merits close attention. Sky will pay £1.2bn upfront for ITV's free-to-air channels and ITVX streaming platform — the core distribution and audience assets. An additional £200m payment, due in the second half of 2028, depends on how well ITVX and ITV's linear channels perform with advertisers during 2027. This contingent component reflects a practical recognition: neither buyer nor seller could confidently project advertising revenues across both traditional TV and streaming 18 months forward, so the deal incorporates an earnout to bridge that gap rather than force an arbitrary all-cash valuation.

Paralleling the main transaction, Comcast will sell Love Productions — the independent production company behind The Great British Bake Off — to ITV for £200m. Comcast had inherited Love Productions through a prior acquisition, but Bake Off logically belongs alongside ITV's wider content slate rather than within a US telecoms portfolio.

One critical carve-out: ITV Studios, the production arm that makes Love Island, I'm a Celebrity, and other major titles, remains with ITV plc. This separation redefines ITV's identity. The company exits the transaction as a global production company, shedding the capital-intensive infrastructure of broadcast distribution and streaming platforms. That shift carries strategic weight. Production companies generate profit through intellectual property ownership and international licensing; traditional UK broadcasting increasingly struggles to do either reliably. By contrast, Sky gains a substantial captive audience across free-to-air channels and a streaming footprint without acquiring production capacity it doesn't require.

Sky has committed to investing at least £2.1bn in the acquired business between 2028 and 2032 under a long-term partnership framework. This signals intent to develop rather than strip assets, though media deals often see such commitments adjust when market conditions deteriorate. The deal structure emerged gradually: ITV's trading update in March 2026 still reported "active discussions" with Sky, meaning final terms took through the first half of 2026 to finalize. The advertising earnout is a direct artifact of that extended negotiation period.

The competitive logic is reasonably clear. Comcast extends Sky's audience footprint by adding ITV's broadcast reach and ITVX's subscribers, without purchasing production studios. ITV concentrates on content creation and international licensing. The outcome consolidates the two largest legacy players in UK commercial television under single ownership, leaving the BBC as the sole major broadcaster outside Comcast's sphere.

What remains unresolved is whether ITVX, now integrated into Sky's wider platform, can meaningfully compete with Netflix and Disney+ — that depends on future investment, programming decisions, and subscriber appetite, none of which this deal determines directly. The more immediate question is regulatory approval. Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority will scrutinize a transaction of this scale and strategic consequence, and neither body has publicly commented. Conditions may be attached to clearance; the timeline to completion remains open.