Sky has agreed terms to acquire ITV Media & Entertainment from ITV plc for a total consideration of up to £1.6 billion, subject to adjustment for cash, debt and net working capital. The agreement was announced on July 6, 2026 and remains subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals.
How the £1.6bn is actually structured
The consideration is not a single cash payment. It comprises £1.2 billion in cash, the production company Love Productions, and up to £0.2 billion in a performance-related earn-out. That earn-out is the part worth watching: a portion of the headline figure depends on the acquired business hitting targets after completion, so the final price is not fixed at announcement.
Running alongside the acquisition is a separate £2.1 billion content agreement with ITV Studios, which stays with ITV plc. Sky frames that commitment as support for British programming, production and creative jobs, and it is substantially larger than the acquisition price itself.
What is promised to stay the same
Sky says ITV's channels and ITVX will remain free-to-air after completion, with all public service broadcasting commitments continuing in full, including regional and national news. ITV notes that those PSB obligations are safeguarded under the Channel 3 Licences until 2034, which Sky acquires as part of the transaction — a contractual backstop with a date attached rather than an assurance alone. ITV News and Sky News are to remain distinct editorial voices.
The scale argument, in the companies' own numbers
ITV reaches around 40 million people a week and serves more than 16.5 million monthly digital users. Sky's case is that the combined business would account for roughly 20% of all in-home viewing in the UK — second to the BBC and ahead of YouTube. The stated rationale is scale against global streaming services and YouTube, pairing free-to-air broadcasting and ad-funded streaming with Sky's subscription television, broadband, mobile and business services.
Dana Strong, Sky Group's chief executive, called it a defining moment for British media. ITV plc chief executive Carolyn McCall framed it as building on ITV's move into streaming through ITVX and as delivering value for shareholders.
What is not yet settled
Regulatory approval is the open question, and the announcement does not predict a timetable or completion date for it. A deal combining a public service broadcaster with the UK's largest pay-television operator invites competition and plurality scrutiny, and the commitments described here are the parties' own. There is also a corporate layer above it: Sky is part of Comcast, which announced a week earlier that it intends to spin off Sky and NBCUniversal into a separate public company.
