Blue Tiger Engage November 2025
BT Engage: November 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 that captured the headlines as we enter the Festive season.
ITV in talks to sell television business to Sky
ITV has said it is in “preliminary” discussions to sell its broadcasting business to Sky for £1.6bn, a move that could reshape the UK’s television landscape.
The talks focus on ITV’s Media and Entertainment division, which includes its free-to-air TV channels as well as the ITV X streaming service.
At launch, the Netflix-Spotify partnership will bring a curated selection of sports, culture, lifestyle, and true crime podcasts from Spotify Studios and The Ringer to Netflix. Over time, the deal will see Spotify adding even more podcasts from other studios and genres, Spotify said.
The discussions with Sky, which is owned by US-based Comcast, come as the television industry faces fierce competition from streaming services such as Netflix and Disney+.
The deal would not include ITV’s production arm – ITV Studios – which makes popular programmes such as Love Island and I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here.
However, one analyst said the broadcaster could lose those shows if the deal goes through as the channel would have to bid alongside rival companies for the contracts, despite ITV being the biggest customer at present.
Tom Harrington, from Enders Analysis, said: “It would be unlikely for current shows to leave ITV as there will already be agreements in place.”
But splitting the two businesses could make it less likely for new shows to appear on ITV, he added.
Comcast, which owns Universal Studios, bought Rupert Murdoch’s Sky in 2018 and is a major player in the US media sector.
It owns NBCUniversal, which contains the NBC and CNBC channels, DreamWorks Animation and streaming service Peacock.
Media analyst Ian Whittaker told the BBC’s Today programme that a combination of Sky and ITV would mean they had “70% plus” of the UK TV advertising market, which he said “in normal circumstances” would be rejected by regulators because of the dominance it would give them.
But he added that with rising competition from the streaming services raising questions over the future of TV, a takeover could be seen as almost a rescue deal.
Mr Harrington said ITV Studios itself was a “very desirable operation” that was “unencumbered by a legacy linear [TV] business”.
Sir Peter Bazalgette, television executive and producer, who was chair of ITV until September 2022 and is a shareholder in the company, told the Today programme that the deal made sense given the pressure from streamers.
On the question of whether a Sky-ITV link up would run up against competition issues, Sir Peter said the regulator needed to “redefine” what the advertising market is.
He said Google owner, Alphabet and Facebook owner, Meta should be treated as the rivals, not the traditional TV advertising market.
Talking about ITV’s TV channels, he said: “Free to air channels across world are not seen to have a great amount of value,” adding that “there’s going to be an inevitable consolidation of domestic broadcasters all across Europe”.
Daily Mail owner strikes £500 million deal to buy The Telegraph
The publisher of the Daily Mail has agreed a £500 million deal to buy Telegraph Media Group.
Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) agreed to purchase the Telegraph from Redbird IMI after an attempted purchase by the Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm was blocked by the then Tory government.
DMGT and Redbird IMI have now entered a period of exclusive talks in which they will finalise the deal and prepare regulatory submissions, which they “expect to happen quickly”.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is set to review the potential new deal, which was announced on Saturday morning.
A spokesperson for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: “The Secretary of State notes the announcement of a prospective new deal.
“She will review any new buyer acquiring the Telegraph in line with the public interest and foreign state influence media mergers regimes set out in legislation.”
DMGT Chairman Lord Rothermere said: “I have long admired the Daily Telegraph. My family and I have an enduring love of newspapers and for the journalists who make them.
“The Daily Telegraph is Britain’s largest and best quality broadsheet newspaper, and I have grown up respecting it. It has a remarkable history and has played a vital role in shaping Britain’s national debate over many decades.
“Chris Evans is an excellent editor, and we intend to give him the resources to invest in the newsroom. Under our ownership, the Daily Telegraph will become a global brand, just as the Daily Mail has.”
The purchase would see the Telegraph become part of DMGT’s stable of media organisations, which also includes Metro, The I Paper and New Scientist.
The media group says it will “invest substantially” in the Telegraph, accelerating its international expansion with a particular focus on the US. It says the Telegraph would remain editorially independent from DMGT’s other titles.
A spokesman for RedBird IMI said: “DMGT and RedBird IMI have worked swiftly to reach the agreement announced today, which will shortly be submitted to the Secretary of State.”
Netflix’s ad tier reaches 190m monthly active viewers
Netflix’s ad tier now reaches 190m monthly active viewers across its 12 markets, the streaming giant revealed this month.
In the UK, Netflix’s ad tier reached 12.1m viewers during October, according to Barb figures. This is up 65% from October 2024 and a rise of 13% from this September.
Damien Bernet, Netflix’s EMEA ads VP, said the ad tier figures signify “pretty tremendous growth” since the streaming giant launched its ad tier three years ago.
“We grew from zero to 190m. It’s a testament to the huge investment and huge growth we’ve been seeing,” he said.
The global monthly active viewer metric differs from how Netflix previously reported ad tier figures, which were based on account profiles signed up to the ad tier.
The new monthly active viewer metric is defined as Netflix users who have watched at least one minute of ad-supported content on the platform per month. That figure is then multiplied by the estimated average household size, based on Netflix’s first-party research.
The streaming giant believes this gives a “more comprehensive” account of how many people are “actually on the couch” watching Netflix’s ad tier.
Bernet said that more than 55% of new Netflix subscribers in the UK choose the ad tier. “And they actually stick to it,” he added.
Like other TV companies, the streaming giant claims it maintains a high level of consumer attention. Citing data from TVision, Bernet said the “level of attention you get from our viewers on Netflix is the same when they start a show until three hours after they started watching”.
For advertisers, Bernet said the company is dedicated to innovating its in-house adtech stack — which it launched in Europe this summer — and positioning its broader ad offering as part of an industry-wide effort to recapture hard-to-reach audiences in the streaming era.
“It’s an opportunity for an advertiser to get back to these viewers,” said Bernet, referring to young viewers who have moved away from watching linear TV. He referred to Netflix as “complementary” to linear.
The streaming giant is now testing “modular” interactive video ad formats in the US. The Netflix Ads Suite is also testing a planning API to help agency partners understand how to identify target audiences for their clients. Both efforts are expected to be rolled out globally by Q2 next year.
While Netflix has not publicly revealed ad revenue figures, Bernet said the company expects to more than double ad revenue this year. Notably, programmatic advertising revenues “are growing more quickly than our ad revenue in general”.
Such growth has come as Netflix continues to expand its programmatic partner base. Netflix partnered with Amazon Ads in September to join its DSP, and similarly joined Yahoo’s DSP in June.
Bernet called the partnerships a “win-win-win”, noting they are a way to drive growth in its number of clients, even as Amazon’s Prime Video is also a competitor streaming platform.
“We love the idea of [media agencies and clients] buying from Netflix, but we need this to be easy to buy,” he added.
While the programmatic business is leading ad revenue growth, brand partnerships are also a core aspect of Netflix’s ads business.
Bernet said that demand is high to partner with tentpole titles like Stranger Things, Squid Game and Wednesday, but admitted the company has more work to do identifying and curating what shows might work best with different clients, especially as Netflix’s own production output has increased and seemingly niche titles like KPop Demon Hunters have drawn sustained mass viewing.
Netflix is also selling ads against live content in the UK. Bernet singled out Netflix’s live Christmas Day NFL games as seeing high advertiser demand this year, attributing that interest to the power of live sport.
The live opportunity is significant, according to Bernet, because it includes not only ad tier subscribers but also premium tier subscribers. Ad breaks during the matches, he explained, reach “the entirety of Netflix’s members”.
On top of other developments, Bernet announced that Netflix is working on bringing a new generative AI tool, launching in the US and debuting in Europe “early next year”, that aims to help connect Netflix show assets to brand assets to create bespoke ads for clients.
“Now that we have our adtech [stack], we have control of our destiny,” he concluded. “It’s going to be a big drum beat in terms of innovation, of targeting, measurement, formats.”
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.
dan@bluetigermarketing.co.uk
Sources:
Bbc.co.uk, ITV.com, Tech Crunch, The Media Leader, Video Week, Adexchanger, The Drum, Marketing Week, Campaign
