Blue Tiger Engage June 2026
BT Engage: June Newsletter
Welcome to Blue Tigers monthly newsletter Engage, bringing you all the latest news, trends and updates from across the media landscape. In this month’s edition we look at the major news stories capturing the headlines as we come to the end of H1.
Comcast-owned Sky reaches terms to buy ITV’s broadcast unit
Sky, the Comcast owned British pay TV group, has agreed on terms to buy ITV’s broadcast and streaming unit, with ITV acquiring “The Great British Bake Off” producer Love Productions as part of the deal.
The £1.6 billion deal had moved in a positive direction in the last week and was now being finalised by lawyers, sources close to the deal have said.
The total transaction value will include ITV Studios acquiring Sky’s Love Productions, which also makes “The Piano” and could be valued between £80 million and £120 million based on comparable deals, and an earn-out, the people said.
ITV shares rose 2.9% giving the group, which comprises its broadcast and streaming unit and ITV Studios production company, a market value of £3.1 billion.
A deal could be announced in the next two weeks, with one source cautioning that the timing could still slip due to final legal complications.
The tie-up aims to create a top-three UK streamer to compete with global giants Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+.
Concluding the deal would end a saga that began last year, and became public in November when ITV said it was in talks to sell the unit, called Media & Entertainment, to Sky. It has involved the complex task of separating ITV’s channels and streaming platform ITVX from ITV Studios, which will be a standalone company following completion.
DGlobal launches outdoor trade marketing campaign to drive OOH in media plans
Global announced the launch of Billboards by Global, a trade marketing initiative that encourages advertisers to rethink the role of billboards in modern media campaigns.
Revealed at the company’s outdoor Upfronts event, the campaign is built around three pillars: scale, creativity, and data and outcomes.
Alongside the campaign, Global unveiled two planning and measurement tools: Access All Audiences for Billboards, and Outcomes, both of which are powered by its insight and data platform Global:IQ.
Mike Gordon, chief commercial officer at Global, said the company recognises there is “a growing demand from brands looking for a simple, high-impact way to reach mass audiences”, and wants to put “fresh momentum” behind the OOH sector.
Speaking at the event, Simon Pitts, group CEO, noted that OOH is only included in 5% of media plans, despite its ability to build brands, adding that the company wants the channel to be “viewed differently”.
Sarah Gale, Global’s director of insight, data and outcomes, said the tools being launched alongside the campaign were designed to address OOH’s longstanding measurement challenge.
Access All Audiences for Billboards uses Global’s audience and location data to help advertisers identify target audiences, optimise locations and plan campaigns with more precision.
Gale said it would let advertisers “target any audience with confidence” and that “smarter planning drives better outcomes”.
The second tool, Outcomes, is designed to measure campaign effectiveness and, according to Gale, “explains the why behind your results”.
As part of the launch, Global ran a full-funnel Outcomes measurement pilot for 45 key advertisers. Global’s insight, data and outcomes team modelled three years of media and outcomes data, including each brand’s recent outdoor campaigns, and found that when billboards were included in a campaign, there was an average 2.4-times uplift in brand-building impact compared to when they were absent from the media plan.
For the creativity pillar, Anto Chioccarelli, director of creative outdoor at Global, advocated for its commercial impact. She referenced a McKinsey & Company study that found highly creative campaigns are 11 times more likely to deliver above-average organic revenue growth.
“So when we invest in creativity, we are not just creating better campaigns. We are creating better business outcomes,” she said.
The campaign’s third pillar, scale, stems from Global’s nationwide inventory, which includes more than 4,500 48-sheet frames. The company said the network reaches 43.1m people a fortnight, equivalent to 77.5% of the UK population.
Telegraph’s £575m takeover by German group completed
The European media group Axel Springer has completed its £575m takeover of the Telegraph, ending three tumultuous years of uncertainty over the future ownership of the 171-year-old titles.
The Germany-headquartered company, which gazumped the owner of the Daily Mail by tabling a blockbuster offer at the 11th hour, said it had now received all regulatory approvals in the UK, Ireland and Austria to take full control of Telegraph Media Group (TMG).
“Today is a day we have worked towards for a long time, and one we will always remember,” said Mathias Döpfner, its chief executive and controlling shareholder.
“Axel Springer and the Telegraph share strong commitments to freedom, values, a tradition of embracing and pioneering technological change, and an entrepreneurial will to actively shape the future.”
The 63-year-old, who has run Axel Springer since 2002, lost out on a previous attempt to buy TMG in 2004 when he was beaten by the Barclay brothers’ £665m offer. He was also pipped by an 11th-hour £844m bid from Nikkei, Japan’s largest media group, to buy the Financial Times in 2015.
The Telegraph will join a stable of media brands including the German titles Bild, Europe’s biggest selling newspaper, and Die Welt, as well as the digital outlets Politico and Business Insider.
Döpfner has said that he intends to leverage his digital assets to push the Telegraph’s digital transformation and expand into the US. His stated aim is to invest in the Telegraph to make it the “leading centre-right media outlet in the English-speaking world”.
“This creates a strong foundation for further accelerating our AI-powered digital transformation,” he said on Tuesday. “Together we can lead the next generation of trusted media.”
Döpfner has said the editorial independence of titles was “sacrosanct”, backing the current suite of executives: Chris Evans, the editor-in-chief of the Telegraph, and Allister Heath, the Sunday Telegraph editor.
“Axel Springer and we have much in common,” Evans said. “We share the same values. We also share the same vision and the same ambition. We believe there are many opportunities to grow the Telegraph, both in the UK and overseas.
“After three difficult years without owners, we look forward to stoking up the engines and setting forth on a new voyage.”
However, while Döpfner had also given his backing to Anna Jones, the chief executive of TMG, she has become the first top executive to depart after the completion of the deal.
Axel Springer has appointed Carolin Hulshoff Pol, a company veteran who has been running Bild since 2004, while Jones will join the board of the German company’s affiliate marketing network, Awin.
Patrick Wehrmann, another Springer veteran, has been named as group chief financial officer at TMG, replacing Catherine Southgate, who has held the role on an interim basis.
The sale of the newspapers was kicked off in 2023 when the Barclay family lost control of the group over £1.16bn in unpaid debts owed to Lloyds bank.
The joint venture RedBird IMI – which is 75% controlled by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the United Arab Emirates and owner of Manchester City – took control of the publishing group after agreeing to pay the Barclays’ debts.
However, it was forced to put the titles back up for sale after the British government passed a law blocking foreign states or associated individuals from owning newspaper assets in the UK. There is now a 15% cap in place after the introduction of the foreign state influence regime.
A consortium led by Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital, the junior partner in RedBird IMI, tabled a £500m deal for the titles last year. However, it pulled out in November, and Daily Mail & General Trust struck its deal later that month.
DMGT had been close to taking control of the Telegraph titles, having been given permission by the UK government to take over the right-to-buy option from RedBird IMI.
However, Axel Springer swooped, tabling an offer at a £75m premium to that of DMGT which, combined with a straightforward regulatory process, was accepted by RedBird IMI.
Our view and how to harness Andromeda
Meta’s new Andromeda AI infrastructure is set to transform how advertising campaigns are planned, optimised and scaled, helping brands achieve greater efficiency and performance through advanced machine learning. But what exactly is Andromeda, what does it mean for advertisers, and how can brands ensure they’re making the most of the opportunities it creates?
In our next Engage edition, we’ll break down what you need to know and explain how Blue Tiger can help you navigate the rapidly evolving AI-powered media landscape.
For further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Blue Tiger Marketing, we’re here to help you navigate the changing landscape effectively, leveraging new opportunities while mitigating potential risks.
Sources:
The Media Leader, Tech Crunch, Video Week, Adexchanger, The Drum, Campaign, ipa.co.uk, The Guardian, Reuters
