ITV snaps up Night on Earth producer for £104m
ITV has splashed £104m on the world’s biggest independent producer of natural history programmes to help shield its business from the streaming giants.
The Love Island broadcaster has taken a 79.5pc stake in Plimsoll Productions, which was behind Netflix’s Night on Earth, as part of efforts to reinforce its production arm, ITV Studios. Bristolbased Plimsoll is a popular producer of natural history programmes, creating Tiny World for Appletv+ and Supernatural Planet for Disney. Plimsoll has also produced Davina Mccall: Life at the Extreme for ITV.
The move comes as ITV sees its traditional TV audience migrate to streaming, lured by big budget shows released by US companies including Netflix. Carolyn Mccall, the chief executive of ITV, said growing ITV Studios with premium shows is core to its strategy. ITV secured the stake in Plimsoll from LDC, a buy-out fund controlled by Lloyds Banking Group that bought into the business three years ago. Since then, the TV production company has grown revenue by 43pc to £50m and made profits of around £10m.
ITV’S shares rose more than 1pc to as high as 69.5p yesterday after the Plimsoll deal was announced.