The merger of Banijay and All3Media creates the largest independent television production group the industry has ever seen. By almost any measure, it is an extraordinary business, bringing together some of television’s strongest production labels, an enormous catalog of intellectual property and operations across 25 territories.
It also represents the latest chapter in a story that began more than 25 years ago.
When the independent production company I co-founded, Brighter Pictures, was acquired by Endemol in 2001, becoming part of a larger international group felt like the obvious next step. Scale brought access to capital, international distribution and the opportunity to develop ideas across multiple territories. Like many founders of that generation, I believed the future belonged to companies that could combine creative independence with international reach.
Looking back, that acquisition was one point on a much longer timeline. Endemol combined with Shine, Endemol Shine was acquired by Banijay, and Banijay has now merged with All3Media. Consolidation has become one of the defining business stories of modern television.
Its commercial rationale has remained remarkably consistent. Larger groups can spread risk across many businesses, invest more heavily in development, negotiate internationally and generate greater long-term value from successful intellectual property. Viewed through the eyes of the financial markets, bigger has generally proved better.
The television industry, however, does not have a single customer.
Investors reward scale. Commissioners rarely commission it. Viewers rarely notice it.
Throughout my career, first as an independent producer and later inside ITV Studios, broadcasters and streamers were seldom looking for the biggest supplier. They wanted the producer or label with the most convincing record in the kind of programs they were being asked to commission. A large parent company might provide financial reassurance, but the creative decision remained rooted in specialist expertise and relevant experience.
Viewers are further removed still. They care about The Traitors, Big Brother, Peaky Blinders or Race Across the World. The ownership of the company making the program barely registers. For audiences, the brand is the show.
That helps explain one of the enduring paradoxes of the production business. Financially, groups grow through consolidation. Creatively, they work hard to preserve the identity of the labels that made them worth acquiring. Banijay may appear as one business in an annual report, but commissioners still buy from companies such as Kudos, Remarkable, Dragonfly and Studio Lambert. Corporate scale is valuable in the boardroom. It is far less persuasive in the room where programs are commissioned.
The merger’s significance may ultimately lie less in its size than in what the enlarged company is now expected to do with it.
Over the past 18 months, I have spoken to founders and creative leaders working inside labels owned by both Banijay and All3Media. Although their circumstances differ, many describe the same strategic pressure. They have been encouraged to think beyond the traditional commissioning economy and to devise long-term growth plans that do not assume an increase in orders from broadcasters or streamers.
This is not evidence that either company has lost faith in television. Major commissions remain enormously valuable, both creatively and commercially. It reflects a broader recognition that future growth will require more than winning the next commission.
For decades, production companies became exceptionally good at serving commissioners because commissioners sat at the center of the economic model. Broadcasters financed the program, scheduled it, marketed it and controlled the relationship with the audience. Producers supplied the creative work.
Building a direct relationship with that audience requires a different set of skills. So does publishing continuously across digital platforms, developing businesses around creators, moving program brands into live entertainment or generating value from intellectual property long after transmission. None of those abilities follows automatically from being excellent at making television.
That is one reason Little Dot Studios could prove to be one of the more strategically important assets within the combined company. Its expertise lies not only in production, but in digital publishing, channel growth, audience development and the management of rights across platforms where traditional television producers have exercised far less influence.
Banijay has developed activities of its own in digital distribution, creator-led content and live entertainment. Even so, neither organization has made an impact in those areas comparable to its influence in television. The merger does not mean that problem has been solved. It gives the enlarged group a stronger collection of tools with which to address it.
Television remains one of the most powerful ways of reaching mass audiences and creating intellectual property with enduring value. But assembling ever larger collections of production companies will not, by itself, secure the next stage of growth.
The challenge is no longer simply to own more IP. It is to create more ways of building businesses around it.
Digital companies begin from a different premise. They can test an idea before it has been through a formal commissioning process, learn from audience behavior as it happens and move between video, audio, live events, subscriptions and commerce. Their relationship with audiences is continuous rather than mediated through a broadcaster’s schedule.
Traditional television companies have often approached digital as an additional form of distribution. They have launched YouTube channels, podcasts, branded-content divisions and live extensions, but relatively few have turned those activities into businesses capable of standing alongside their television operations.
That is partly because the habits required for success are so different. Television development is selective, expensive and often slow. Ideas are refined for a small number of powerful buyers, and the cost of being wrong can be considerable. Digital publishing frequently rewards speed, regularity and the willingness to respond publicly to what audiences are doing. A television producer may spend months perfecting a single proposition while a creator tests several ideas and lets the audience help determine which one deserves further investment.
Neither model is inherently superior. They have different economics and serve different markets. The danger lies in assuming that digital is simply television delivered through another screen.
Little Dot’s value is that it was built around those differences. The question is whether that expertise can shape the wider group rather than remain concentrated inside one specialist business.
The same question applies to live entertainment. A television program can support tours, exhibitions, immersive experiences, merchandise and commercial partnerships, but a recognizable title is not enough. These businesses require operational expertise and an understanding of what audiences will pay for beyond watching the program. The opportunity is to turn attention into an ongoing relationship without exhausting or diminishing the brand that created it.
The combined company has an exceptional catalogue from which to begin. Its most established formats already travel between territories, platforms and generations. Extending those franchises presents an obvious opportunity. The more difficult task will be to develop new intellectual property with a broader commercial life in mind from the outset, rather than adding digital, audio or live activity only after a television programme has become successful.
This raises a cultural challenge as well as a commercial one. The traditional super-indie was built by acquiring entrepreneurial companies and allowing them enough independence to continue producing distinctive work. That balance becomes harder as the parent company grows. Shared services, central investment and coordinated rights exploitation can make a group stronger, but creative businesses rarely flourish when too many decisions are pulled towards the centre.
The enlarged Banijay must therefore do two things at once. It needs to make better use of its resources across distribution, digital publishing and live entertainment while preserving the identity and autonomy of the labels commissioners choose to work with. The logic of the merger lies in combining resources. The creative value may depend on knowing what not to combine.
A group can own dozens of labels, but ideas still originate in relatively small teams. The next successful format will not be created by the corporate structure. It will come from a producer, writer or founder who sees an opportunity before the market does and persuades others to share that belief.
Consolidation can provide the capital, distribution and resilience that allow an idea to travel further. It cannot manufacture the instinct that produced the idea.
For that reason, the next phase of consolidation is likely to look different from the last. The most valuable acquisition for a global production group may not be another television label. It could be a creator business, a digital publisher, a sports-media company, a live-events operation or a platform with direct access to a particular audience. The next prize may be capability rather than another catalogue.
This is why the term “super-indie” may eventually become inadequate. It describes a company assembled from independent producers, but not necessarily the broader business those producers are now expected to help create. Banijay and All3Media have merged at a point when the production sector is being asked to think beyond production, without yet having settled on what comes after it.
That is not the end of television. It is television becoming the foundation of a wider entertainment business.
When Brighter Pictures joined Endemol in 2001, the promise of scale was that a successful idea could travel further. That promise has been fulfilled many times over. The question facing the world’s largest independent production group is whether its scale can now support a more direct and lasting relationship with audiences, rather than leaving that relationship almost entirely to broadcasters and platforms.
Banijay-All3Media could be the last great super-indie in the form the industry has known. Whatever follows will continue to make television, but it will need to think, operate and grow as something broader than a television production company.
