ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall has rejected concerns that the newly announced Banijay–All3Media merger leaves ITV Studios subscale, while also pushing back against reports that the company’s talks with Sky over the possible sale of its Media & Entertainment business have lost momentum – telling journalists the two sides remain “actively engaged.”
McCall made the remarks on a media call on Thursday following ITV’s full-year 2025 results. Asked whether there had been a lull in the Sky talks, she said: “Is it a long time? No. Because what is a long time?” She declined to say whether any other parties had expressed interest in either the broadcasting business or ITV Studios since the deal was first confirmed in November 2025. “I can’t talk about any other expressions of interest or anything remotely to do with any of that,” she said.
McCall was also asked about the impact of the newly announced Banijay-All3Media merger – which creates an $8 billion production group – on ITV Studios. She was dismissive. “We don’t feel that it will have any impact on us, because bear in mind, we are probably two and a half times the size of All3Media,” she said, adding that the company was “much, much smaller than I think people realize externally.” ITV CFO Chris Kennedy added that “All3 is a third of the size of ITV Studios – just to put that into perspective. We are already one of the largest independent studios groups in the world.”
Asked directly whether the merger left ITV Studios subscale in the new media landscape, McCall was unequivocal. “No, I don’t think it does at all,” she said, pointing to the company’s top-three position in every geography it operates in, a scripted portfolio that now accounts for 30% of output, and studios revenue growth of over 40% since she joined the company. “We are confident we will have profitable growth for many, many, many years, in fact, indefinitely,” she said.
When it was put to her that the merged Banijay-All3 entity would be larger than ITV Studios, she acknowledged the point but said size was not the determining factor. “For us, the size is not as relevant as the labels and the creative talent,” she said. On the question of transformative M&A, she said ITV would remain disciplined. “We are not going to do something that you might say is transformative if it isn’t at the right value,” she said. ITV Studios managing director Julian Bellamy noted the business operates across 13 markets with 60 production companies, licensing content to over 350 customers globally.
On the Warner Bros. Discovery-Paramount consolidation, McCall said ITV had strong relationships with both and expected them to continue. On Paramount specifically, she said the newly stabilized ownership had opened up new commissioning opportunities. “Now that they have stability in terms of their ownership and they’re ambitious, they’ve actually opened up the business in a way they weren’t open before in terms of commissioning us,” she said. Bellamy noted that the two companies together represent just two clients within a deeply diversified customer base.
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