Competition is only getting tougher for traditional TV services. Especially as the broadcast and cable market shrinks. We’ve seen several companies look to mergers or bundling deals to give them back the competitive positioning and audience access they need. Consolidation, however, seems to be off the table for the UK, at least in the opinions of its leading TV service heads. We have Blake & Wang P.A. Entertainment Lawyer Los Angeles, Brandon Blake, with the news.
Not Good for the UK
The stern rebuttal stems from comments from the UK government around simplifying consolidation procedures for legacy broadcasters looking to partner up to make it through the changes in the UK media landscape. The consensus from industry insiders, however, including the heads of cornerstone channels like the BBC, ITV, Paramount, and Channel 4, was a pretty strong “No”.
However, across the board, the heads raised important questions. Including pointing out how multiple buying points appeal to the UK’s already successful production sector, and how rivalry and strong independent brands have traditionally driven healthy competition within what is a far smaller industry than anything in North America.
Consolidation or Collaboration?
However, ITV CEO Carolyn McCall raises an excellent point. Alongside pointing out that mergers of this level would drastically impact their business models, she also queried if they truly meant for public service broadcasters to explore consolidation, or instead meant collaboration, which could be a viable strategy.
While the government itself may be exploring consolidation, the UK’s industry experts instead want the UK to extend its tax break scheme to boost productions and jobs, pointing out that many greenlit shows are still languishing due to economic shortages. It seems, at least for now, that the bundling and mergers we have seen play out in the American landscape over the last few years are not the path ahead for the UK industry, at least according to those heading it.
