Jeff Zucker and Marco Bassetti had their eyes on the same prize two years ago. Now they get to run it together.
Zucker’s RedBird IMI and Banijay have struck a deal valued at $8 billion to merge All3Media with Banijay, which is headed by Bassetti as CEO. The transaction will bring together All3Media shows and formats such as “The Traitors” and “Undercover Boss” with Banijay’s vast library of global series that ranges from “Big Brother” and “MasterChef” to “Peaky Blinders” and “Black Mirror.”
The deal between two of Europe’s top indie production ventures caught the marketplace by surprise on Tuesday morning. RedBird IMI acquired All3Media in May 2024 from its previous owners, Liberty Global and Virgin Media. Banijay had looked at All3Media at the time but held back from bidding. Early last year, Bassetti and Zucker had a conversation that lit a fire. The formal talks to merge the groups picked up steam in the fall, leading to the agreement formally being signed on Tuesday evening, London time. The partners hope the pact will be approved by Euro regulators by the end of the third quarter.
If all goes as planned, Bassetti will serve as CEO of the enlarged Banijay, which is publicly traded. Zucker will be chairman of the board of directors as he continues with RedBird IMI on his other investments. All3Media CEO Jane Turton will serve as deputy CEO. Bassetti points to Banijay’s track record of absorbing Endemol Shine North America in 2020 as a model for how they will make one plus one equal three following the integration. All3Media itself has grown through a steady stream of acquisitions since it was founded in 2003.
Just an hour after they shook hands on the deal, Bassetti and Zucker spoke with Variety on why the time is right for the two to come together and how they hope to build on each company’s strengths.
Marco, you looked at All3Media a few years ago but didn’t go for it at that time. What made now the right time for this deal?
MARCO BASSETTI: Jeff was smarter than us, and he made the deal. If you look back two years ago, the market was different, and it changed very rapidly. So what we believe that now to have a scale what you need is more assets. All3Media kept going and created fantastic stuff, like ‘The Traitors’ and other new big shows. We very much appreciated how it was managed by Jane Turton. And we are very happy that she will stay with us. They are very complimentary to us because they’re a very strong digital business. They’re very good at monetizing and creating content on digital and they are very good in adapting, like they did with ‘Squid Game.’ All3Media is very strong in the English market which is the market where we have to be. I believe that without let’s say geographic restrictions, we can have a lot of opportunity for the future. That’s the main reason why now we made the deal now.
Jeff, same question for you. Why now? What did you see that made you feel the time was right to do this deal?
JEFF ZUCKER: We’ve owned All3Media for 20 months now, just under two years. I will tell you that I think it was two months after we completed that deal, Stéphane Courbit, who is the majority owner of Banijay Group, came to see me in New York. And we’d owned All3Media for like eight weeks and Stéphane already wanted to do a deal. So we told him at the time let us find our way around All3 for a while and then organize the meeting. Marco organized that meeting. So then Stéphane called us again at the beginning of last year and we were certainly more ready to have the conversation. The conversations really picked up and became real towards the end of last summer, and we’ve been talking for the last six months in a very serious way.
The reason that the timing is right is twofold. One, the global media ecosystem is rapidly changing and evolving and I think that you can’t just stand pat, and you’ve got to continue to get stronger. And I think we’ve done that with this merger. And listen, Banijay and the organization that Marco has led is a world-class company. And for us, the opportunity to come together, to bring all three media together with Banijay is just an incredibly exciting opportunity to create the world’s largest independent media content company with global scale, world-class IP at a time when that’s incredibly important in the in the evolving media ecosystem. So the time was right and the combination was perfect, obviously, so many complimentary strengths there. Banijay’s strength in live event programming — one of their companies just produced the opening ceremony at the Milan Olympics. All3 has strength through Little Dot Studios in monetizing content on new digital platforms and our ability to now to do that with a much larger catalog, all of these things come together, and I think, make us a truly global company with incredible world class IP that’s unmatched.
Jeff, you’re coming from a U.S. media background. In your time with All3Media, what has surprised you about the business.? Are there pockets of strength or aspects to the industry in the U.K. and Europe that you found interesting and different from the U.S.?
ZUCKER: To be clear, Jane Turton has run All3Media for us. And as Marco alluded to, we’re thrilled that Jane will stay and work with with Marco, and I think that combination really gives us confidence going forward. In terms of your question about what has surprised us. The thing that is really important today is just the strength of all of these franchises. You know, in the last 18 months, the explosion of ‘The Traitors,’ you know whether you’re talking U.K., whether you’re talking us, whether you’re talking ‘The Celebrity Traitors,’ the explosion of that franchise and format has been at a time when people didn’t know, can you break a new format? That has been incredibly exciting. Put that together with the with the incredible franchises that Banijay brings to the table and ‘MasterChef’ and ‘Big Brother’ and survivor, etc. I think, you know, this is a really fantastic combination of incredible programming and formats, and I think that’s what we’re so excited about.
Marco, what will be you able to do together that you couldn’t do separately? Using ‘Traitors’ as an example, when you have a hit format that is just exploding like that, can you exploit that more thoroughly now that you’re going to have feet on the ground in more markets?
BASSETTI: Good point. For instance, we have production companies where All3Media doesn’t have today, so in the future, we can produce a ‘Traitors’ or maybe in some other case we can relaunch shows. For instance in the U.K., ‘Big Brother’ stopped for two years and then was relaunched, and has been very successful. ‘Deal or No Deal’ as well. So I think that we have this skill in our group, and then it’s not just ‘Traitors.’ We have fantastic formats in the catalog that maybe they were not able exploit because they don’t have the footprint that we have.
ZUCKER: I would like to embarrass Marco for a second as well. One of the things that gives us great confidence going forward is knowing that Marco will be at the helm of this new much larger company. And that’s something that gives us great comfort, and the fact that Jane will also be part of it and work with Marco. We have a really dynamic leadership team to take this team forward.
You have a synergy target of about $60 million. Is that from combining duplicative operations? Will there be some consolidation among the staff?
ZUCKER: When you bring two companies together like this there’s obviously duplicative real estate and duplicative operations and things like that. So obviously, the cost synergies is something that is natural in a combination like this. So, yes, that will be important. But I would say that this is not just about cost synergies. This is really about growth opportunities as well. And I think there will be growth through the new company’s ability to monetize formats as Marco alluded to produce ‘Traitors’ in markets that we weren’t in, to monetize Banijay’s catalog in ways that weren’t doing. Nobody was falling down on the job, but it’s just there were capabilities in the other place that one didn’t have. And so that’ll give us growth and revenue opportunities. Combine those with obviously cost synergies that are a normal part of any combination like this, and I think that gives us great excitement about what this company can do together.
BASSETTI: But just to add something to this. We don’t want to do synergy in the creative side. We want to create synergy where there is a duplication and in other kinds of cost. Look at what we did a few years ago with Endemol Shine. It’s a clear demonstration that all the money that we invested in the creative side in order to create more opportunity for the group, and we believe that we can do the same with All3Media.
Do you feel like achieving more scale and heft is important given what we’re seeing from Paramount and Warner Brothers and Netflix, you know, the global scale that these platforms have. Do you feel like that is accelerating the consolidation of production assets?
ZUCKER: Sure. The reality is that the media ecosystem globally is changing and, and we felt it was important for many reasons to make sure that we kept pace with that. Better scale in a global entertainment industry is really important. I think that the fact that we also have world-class IP together even bolsters that even more. But the reality is, the media world is changing, and we’re changing with it, and we’re excited to be a significant player in that world. I don’t know if we gave you this number but the enterprise value of this combined company is about $8 billion.
Jeff, in terms of yourself and your role at RedBird IMI. Has that changed at all? Are you still in that partnership in the context of your chairman of the board role at Banijay.
ZUCKER: Yes, RedBird IMI still has other portfolio companies. So we will continue to manage those, and I’ll be the chairman of the board of this company. But you know, in all candor, this is the most significant company within our portfolio. And, you know, we started that joint venture [RedBird IMI] less than three years ago, and here we are. We’re really proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish in just three years. And we could not have done that without the support of our friends in Abu Dhabi [through the privately held IMI media firm], and that’s something that’s been exciting for the Banijay group as well. The fact that they also now are partners with Abu Dhabi is something — I’m not trying to speak for Stéphane — but I’ve heard him say many times that’s an exciting part of this as well.
We’re writing a lot about Saudi Arabia and Middle Eastern markets opening up for entertainment. Do you see that as a big opportunity for you?
BASSETTI: We are already there. With Endemol, we were in Dubai and and Saudi. So we are already operating there. And as Banijay Entertainment we are very happy to have a Japanese team, and I think that could help us develop business. Also the financial combination of the two groups, with our shareholder, and with All3 shareholder [RedBird IMI], we can became even more of a natural consolidator in our industry.
When did you sign the the deal? Congratulations on keeping it quiet.
ZUCKER: We signed it about an hour ago.
English (US) ·