ITV Studios (ITVS) is aggressively moving into its next phase of growth in the UK under the leader ship of Julian Bellamy.
Broadcast revealed this week that it is creating a major entertainment indie, Cats on the Roof Media, with a trio of execs from Objective Productions and its co-founder Andrew O’Connor.
Last week, ITV acquired full control of Poldark producer Mammoth Screen, and the company is understood to be in advanced talks to acquire The Jump producer Twofour Group.
Mammoth’s turnover last year was £24.3m, while Twofour Group revenues were £91m. While ITV is categorically not buying Objective, it will be recruiting the execs who played a key role in generating £26.8m last year.
All three deals follow Bellamy’s appointment as ITVS UK managing director in April last year.
Cats on the Roof Media will act as an umbrella operation within ITVS.
Its components will include gameshow label Gameface Productions, run by The Cube creator Adam Adler; Crook Productions, run by Objective head of entertainment Matt Crook; and Second Act Productions, which is close to appointing a creative leader and will focus on scripted comedy. O’Connor will oversee the Cats on the Roof operation.
If ITV seals a deal with Twofour Group, it will reunite drama heavyweights Laura Mackie and Sally Haynes with the broadcaster, via their start-up Mainstreet Pictures, and significantly boost its fact ent credentials via the Twofour operating company.
The latter is a key supplier of Channel 4, producing the likes of The Jump and the Educating… franchise.
The growing might of ITVS has been noted by some senior industry fi gures, who believe it is exerting increasing influence on the ITV network.
Wayne Garvie, chief creative officer, international production, at Sony Pictures Television, said ITVS was becoming a threat to the independent production community. “BBC [Studios] isn’t an issue for me; I’m more concerned with ITV Studios,” he said, speaking at Broadcast’s Global TV Summit last week.
“A vertically integrated ITV is potentially a big threat to the independent community and if there’s a change of ownership of ITV, what would happen then?”
He flagged that ITVS’ percentage of ITV output has grown over the past five years, from 50% in 2009 to 60% in 2014.
Garvie’s view was backed by former ITV drama exec Andy Harries, who is now chief executive of DCI Banks producer Left Bank Pictures.
Harries, who is pitching Downton Abbey-meets-Deadwood period drama Prairie Fever to ITV and others, said: “ITV is becoming a citadel; it’s becoming like an American studio. It will be in-house production and indies it fully owns. Adam Crozier’s plan is sensible and is in line with the way that international media groups are growing, [but] it means less work for us, unless we can deliver a show that ITV really must have at a price that it wants to buy it at.”
ITV director of television Peter Fincham responded: “Of course we have a great relationship with ITV Studios but, quite simply, we are looking for the very best ideas wherever they come from.
“Our doors are wide open to all suppliers – both ITVS and independent producers – as they always have been. We are very proud to have been rated as the best broadcaster to work with for the second year running in Broadcast’s 2015 Indie Survey.”
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