> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.formatforward.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # ITV Studios Is Now the Orphaned Asset. Where Does It Go for Comfort? - URL: https://www.formatforward.com/itv-studios-is-now-the-orphaned-asset-where-does-it-go-for-comfort/ - Published: 2026-07-06T11:56:41.000Z - Updated: 2026-07-06T11:56:41.000Z - Description: Sky's ITV takeover leaves ITV Studios standalone right as Banijay and All3Media merge. What it means for format creators pitching new shows. - Author: Jonathan Glazier - Tags: Market Wall **TL;DR** - Sky's £1.6bn takeover of ITV's channels and ITVX is done. ITV Studios stays independent, backed by a content supply deal running to 2032. - That output deal protects existing hits. It says nothing about appetite for new formats from outside producers. - Studios is now standalone at the exact moment Banijay and All3Media have merged into a production giant. Scale just became existential, not optional. - Three paths sit in front of Studios: stay independent and get bigger by acquisition, merge with Fremantle, or become Banijay's next target. - Each path changes how open the door is to external format pitches, and developers should be watching for the signal, not the headline. ## Sign up for Format Forward Format development, from first thought to sellable idea. join Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Sky's takeover of ITV's Media & Entertainment arm is being covered as a broadcaster story. Which channels survive, whose news operation wins, who gets the top content job. All fair questions. But there's a second story sitting underneath it, and it's the one that matters if you develop formats for a living. ITV Studios, one of the biggest commissioning-adjacent platforms for new formats anywhere in the world, has just been cut loose from its parent broadcaster. It now has to stand on its own feet in a market that is consolidating around it, not with it. ### The safety net is narrower than it looks Sky has agreed a content supply deal worth £2.1bn running to 2032, guaranteeing that Love Island, Coronation Street and I'm a Celebrity keep being made for ITV's channels. That's a real commitment and it matters for the people currently working on those shows. But read it for what it is. It's a supply guarantee for existing IP, not a development commitment. It tells Studios what it's allowed to keep making. It doesn't tell you anything about whether Studios still has the appetite, or the balance sheet, to take a punt on your new format next year. Those are two different questions, and trade coverage is currently answering only the first one. ### Standalone at the worst possible moment Here's the timing problem. Just as Studios becomes a standalone business, Banijay and All3Media are combining into one of the largest production groups in the world. Studios now has to prove it has the scale to compete with a rival that just got dramatically bigger, at the exact moment it lost the built-in distribution advantage of sitting inside a vertically integrated broadcaster. Q1 numbers gave Studios a decent story to tell on paper. The production business grew 4% to £400m while the M&E side it's separating from actually declined slightly. That's the argument for confidence. But growth in a fragmenting market and growth in a consolidating one are not the same kind of growth, and Studios now has to generate the second kind while looking like it's still doing the first. > The question isn't whether ITV Studios survives. It's who it needs to become in order to. ### Three roads, three different climates for developers #### 1\. Stay independent and buy scale Love Productions, maker of Bake Off, is already being folded into Studios as part of the Sky deal. That's a signal Studios intends to grow by acquiring established indies rather than developing everything in-house. If this is the path, expect Studios to keep buying label credibility and back catalogue rather than opening the door wider to unsolicited format pitches. Good for indies with a saleable slate. Tougher for lone format creators without one. #### 2\. Merge with Fremantle RTL-owned Fremantle has been floated as a partner. A tie-up like this usually means consolidated development slates, fewer duplicate genre teams, and a harder filter at the door because two commissioning cultures are being merged into one. Historically, this kind of merger tightens the funnel before it reopens it. #### 3\. Become Banijay's next move Sources aren't ruling this out, and Banijay has shown no sign of slowing its acquisition pace. If this happens, Studios loses its independent identity entirely and becomes another label inside an already vast portfolio. For developers, that usually means format decisions get made further from the people you're actually pitching to. ### What this means if you're pitching formats right now - **Don't read the output deal as a green light.** It secures jobs on existing shows. It says nothing about new commissions. - **Watch who Studios buys next, not what it says.** Acquisitions are the real strategy statement here, press releases aren't. - **Fewer buyers means harder fee negotiations across the board.** Every major consolidation this year, Sky-ITV, Banijay-All3Media, Paramount-Warner, shrinks the number of homes for a new format. That's a leverage problem for every independent format creator, not just the ones targeting ITV. - **Regulatory scrutiny buys you time, not certainty.** Ofcom and the CMA will pick over news plurality and ad concentration for months. That's a window to build relationships before any new structure hardens, not a reason to wait it out. The developer-centric view of this deal isn't "what happens to Love Island." It's "what happens to the number of doors a format creator can knock on." Right now that number is shrinking, and ITV Studios' next move will tell us by how much. --- Jonathan Glazier Format creator and executive producer *I'm dyslexic. AI helps me make my writing more readable. The thoughts, opinions and research here are my own. No auto-generated articles, ever.*