Former Enders Evaluation senior analyst Francois Godard immediately described the wave of European tv consolidation as “glacial however unstoppable,” a phrase that captures the arc of a multi-year trade restructuring that has produced three main offers in below twelve months and left French broadcasters as the first holdouts in a continent-wide shift towards scale.

The comment was made immediately, June 26, 2026, in a LinkedIn post responding to the Sky-ITV deal first reported by Reuters on June 24. Godard, who spent 21 years as a worldwide video and sport industries analyst at Enders Evaluation earlier than leaving the agency in March 2026, has been one of the vital cited observers of European tv’s structural transformation. His remark crystallises what has turn out to be the defining theme of European media within the first half of this decade: a set of transactions that individually look incremental however collectively characterize a basic reorganisation of who controls video audiences and the promoting revenues that circulation from them.

The wave of offers driving consolidation

Three transactions kind the spine of the present consolidation cycle.

The primary and largest in structural phrases was MFE-MediaForEurope’s takeover of ProSiebenSat.1. MFE, the broadcaster managed by the Berlusconi household’s Fininvest Group by a Dutch-registered holding firm, launched a voluntary public takeover bid for ProSiebenSat.1 on March 26, 2025. After rising its provide in July 2025 – elevating the share part from 0.4 MFE peculiar A-class shares to 1.3 MFE A-shares per ProSiebenSat.1 share whereas holding the money consideration at EUR 4.48 – MFE secured 75.61% of the German broadcaster’s share capital by September 4, 2025. ProSiebenSat.1 has been consolidated in MFE’s accounts since October 2025. In response to Enders Evaluation, as soon as absolutely consolidated, MFE claims the title of the largest free-to-air broadcasting operator in Europe, with revenues of EUR 6.8 billion. MFE’s most up-to-date quarterly outcomes confirmed internet consolidated revenues of EUR 1,463.1 million within the first quarter of 2026, down 4.5% year-over-year on a reported foundation however in contrast towards pro-forma figures assuming full consolidation of ProSiebenSat.1 from January 1, 2025.

The second transaction concerned RTL Group and Sky Deutschland. RTL Group, the Luxembourg-based broadcaster managed by Bertelsmann, introduced in June 2025 that it will purchase Sky’s German-market pay-television operations for an preliminary EUR 150 million in money, with a variable consideration linked to RTL Group’s share value efficiency capped at an extra EUR 377 million. The European Fee cleared the deal with out imposing any circumstances in April 2026. RTL Group then closed the transaction on June 1, 2026 for EUR 68 million in upfront money – materially beneath the initially acknowledged EUR 150 million determine, reflecting the variable construction of the settlement and the efficiency of RTL Group’s personal shares within the intervening interval. The mixed entity has roughly 12.3 million subscribers throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, creating Germany’s largest streaming firm. PPC Land covered the European Commission’s unconditional clearance of the transaction and the deal’s closing on the considerably diminished value in separate items.

The third, and most up-to-date, is the potential acquisition by Sky of ITV’s Media and Leisure unit for GBP 1.6 billion. Reuters reported on June 24, 2026 that phrases had been agreed, with sources saying attorneys have been finalising the deal and an announcement may come inside two weeks. The GBP 1.6 billion determine covers ITV’s linear tv channels and the ITVX streaming platform however not ITV Studios, the manufacturing arm, which can proceed as a standalone entity. As PPC Land reported, Reuters additionally reported a efficiency earn-out of roughly GBP 200 million, that means the whole value may method GBP 1.8 billion if ITV’s broadcast enterprise meets monetary targets. Sky acquired Love Productions – the manufacturing firm behind programmes together with “The Nice British Bake Off” – from ITV Studios as a part of the settlement, with that asset valued at between GBP 80 million and GBP 120 million.

The promoting market as the true battleground

What binds these transactions isn’t merely scale for its personal sake. The aggressive stress comes from the promoting market as a lot as from the subscription wars.

RTL Group’s digital advertising revenue surged 27.1% to EUR 230 million in the first half of 2025, whereas conventional tv promoting on the similar firm fell 6.9% to EUR 1,018 million. The trajectory is constant throughout European broadcasters. Streaming platforms and YouTube have taken a significant share of the video promoting market that business tv used to dominate. In response to a Boston Consulting Group research from September 2025, streaming platforms and social video had captured 64% of weekly viewing time throughout the UK, France, Germany, and Switzerland.

MFE Promoting, the business gross sales arm of the MFE group, launched a self-serve advert supervisor platform for small and medium-sized companies in Might 2024, initially in Spain. Mara Negri, SVP of worldwide media businesses at MFE Promoting, participated in IAB Europe’s Digital Programmatic Day in April 2026, the place she recognized three historic boundaries that had beforehand stored smaller companies off tv: the minimal viewers dimension required for addressability, the excessive value of artistic manufacturing, and the complexity of execution. Related tv and programmatic shopping for have progressively eliminated every of these boundaries. PPC Land’s coverage of the IAB Europe 2026 programmatic event famous that Negri’s contribution got here within the context of a broader trade dialog about unlocking the SMB promoting section for broadcaster stock.

The RTL-Sky Deutschland mixture offers RTL Group a materially expanded programmatic stock. RTL’s AdManager platform, launched in March 2025, is a self-service system that allows businesses and types to buy digital tv and video stock throughout a number of European markets. That stock pool has now grown considerably with the addition of Sky Deutschland’s sports activities audiences and subscriber base. The Smartclip and Digital Minds adtech collaboration, constructed collectively by RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 in early 2024 as a European different to US-dominated programmatic infrastructure, now has entry to a mixed viewers significantly bigger than both firm held individually.

The place France stands

Godard’s statement that consolidation is “glacial however unstoppable” carries a selected resonance when utilized to France, which has been essentially the most conspicuous absence from the consolidation wave.

In response to Enders Evaluation analysis cited in Reuters studies from January 2026, Godard mentioned: “For 20 years there’s been consolidation in the US.” He described France as “utterly blocked whereas opening the doorways large to Netflix.” French broadcasters face home possession guidelines that analysts say make cross-border or home consolidation tough. An try by TF1 and M6 to merge in 2022 was deserted after the businesses concluded that antitrust treatments would hole out the deal’s strategic worth.

The French Senate accredited an modification that would scale back the published licence lock-up interval from 5 years to 2, doubtlessly permitting M6 to pursue acquisitions by 2028 fairly than 2032. MFE CEO Pier Silvio Berlusconi confirmed publicly that MFE had held unsuccessful talks with TF1 and reiterated curiosity within the French market, having beforehand made a proposal valuing RTL’s stake in M6 at roughly EUR 1.4 billion, or EUR 22 per share. Whether or not French regulatory and legislative reform is available in time to matter is an open query.

MFE’s Portugal stake and the size of ambition

MFE’s growth has not been restricted to Germany. On March 10, 2026, MFE subscribed to 82.5 million newly issued shares in Impresa, the Portuguese media group that runs SIC and a number of thematic channels, at EUR 0.21 per share. The transaction gave MFE a 32.934% stake in Impresa for about EUR 17.3 million – a modest outlay that follows an settlement with Impreger, the Balsemão household holding firm that retains management with a 33.738% stake. Following the transaction, the remaining 33.328% is held in free float on Euronext Lisbon. Impresa reported consolidated revenues of EUR 181.8 million and EBITDA of EUR 18.8 million for the yr ending December 31, 2025. MFE has described the funding as a part of its technique to construct progress throughout the pan-European leisure and media sector.

That stake follows MFE’s broader geographic logic. The group now holds management positions in Italy, Spain, and Germany, has a minority stake in Portugal, and has held discussions about France. In response to MFE’s personal historical past web page, ProSiebenSat.1 has been consolidated in MFE’s accounts since October 2025, establishing MFE as a pan-European broadcaster with important operations throughout 4 main tv markets. The group held its annual shareholders’ assembly on June 24, 2026, on the Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Schiphol lodge, with Fedele Confalonieri, the statutory chairperson of the board of administrators, presiding.

What Godard’s profession context provides

The importance of Godard’s remark is partly a operate of who’s making it. His LinkedIn profile, captured within the paperwork hooked up to this text, reveals he labored as a worldwide video and sport industries analyst at Enders Evaluation from November 2004 to March 2026 – a 21-year tenure on the London-based analysis agency. Earlier than that, he spent almost 14 years as a contract journalist, writing for FT Media and Telecoms, Selection, and The Hollywood Reporter from January 1991 to October 2004. He studied at Sciences Po in Paris, graduating in 1987. He holds a doctorate awarded in 2020 from the College of Geneva. He lives in Procida, off the coast of Naples.

His lengthy observe document of commentary on exactly this set of trade dynamics – MFE’s method to ProSiebenSat.1, Comcast’s difficulties with Sky Deutschland, the Italian media market, French regulatory constraints – offers his framing of the second added weight. When Godard feedback that Italy’s proposed MFE-Sky IT situation “could be very speculative,” preferring the concept that “Sky IT shopping for Discovery IT can be a extra possible improvement, however at a a lot decrease scale,” he’s drawing on years of study of the Italian pay-television market. Sky Italia is presently Comcast’s remaining main continental European tv asset after the sale of Sky Deutschland. In response to Grokipedia’s profile of Sky Italia, the division holds round 5 million subscribers, making it the most important pay-TV operator in Italy, and holds a 22.5% viewers share as of the primary half of 2025, in comparison with RAI’s 27.3%.

Why the promoting and programmatic group ought to concentrate

For professionals working in programmatic promoting and related tv, the structural reorganisation of European free-to-air and pay tv carries direct sensible implications.

Stock consolidation modifications shopping for dynamics. When MFE controls Italian Mediaset channels, Spanish Cuatro and Telecinco, and German ProSiebenSat.1’s portfolio, its promoting gross sales operation – MFE Promoting – has the size to construction pan-European packages. Whether or not a programmatic purchaser working by DSPs encounters that stock as a single unified provide path or as separate nationwide silos is determined by selections MFE has not but absolutely finalised.

PPC Land has tracked how programmatic CTV is evolving in European markets, together with the IAB Europe information to programmatic CTV from April 2026 that mapped DSP-SSP interactions, SSAI implementation, and regulatory necessities. Programmatic CTV budgets grew to 26% of media spend in 2026, up three share factors year-over-year, based on that information. The RTL-Sky Deutschland deal and the potential Sky-ITV mixture every produce entities with the viewers scale to barter instantly with DSPs and set phrases for the way their stock is traded. The mixed RTL-Sky Deutschland entity, with 12.3 million paying subscribers within the DACH area, is bigger than it was by way of programmatic addressability in Germany.

The Sky-ITV deal, if accomplished, would restructure the UK tv promoting market in a means that the Competitors and Markets Authority might want to scrutinise rigorously. Sky and ITV have competed for a similar pool of UK tv promoting budgets. Folding ITV’s linear channels and ITVX below Sky’s possession removes inner competitors between two of the most important sellers of premium video stock within the UK market. Viewers who beforehand noticed ITV and Sky as separate provide sources would encounter them by a single business organisation.

The query of how agentic shopping for techniques will work together with consolidated broadcaster stock isn’t but settled. PPC Land covered IAB Tech Lab’s work on agentic advertising standards, together with dialogue on the April 2026 programmatic day of how AI shopping for techniques want guard rails earlier than they’re deployed at scale towards premium broadcast stock. Bigger broadcasters, higher resourced and with stronger negotiating positions, could also be higher positioned to outline the phrases below which agentic techniques entry their stock.

Timeline

Abstract

Who: Francois Godard, a former senior Enders Evaluation analyst with 21 years of European media analysis expertise, who left the agency in March 2026 and has continued to remark publicly on trade developments. The businesses on the centre of the consolidation he describes are MFE-MediaForEurope, RTL Group, Sky, and ITV.

What: A LinkedIn submit during which Godard characterised European tv consolidation as “glacial however unstoppable,” responding to the Sky-ITV deal agreed on June 24, 2026. The submit displays on a cycle of transactions which have included MFE’s acquisition of a 75.61% stake in ProSiebenSat.1, RTL Group’s EUR 68 million acquisition of Sky Deutschland, and Sky’s GBP 1.6 billion settlement to purchase ITV’s broadcast and streaming unit.

When: The submit was made immediately, June 26, 2026, roughly 48 hours after Reuters reported that Sky and ITV had agreed phrases on the ITV deal. The consolidation cycle it references has been underway since at the least March 2025, when MFE launched its ProSiebenSat.1 takeover bid.

The place: The submit appeared on LinkedIn. The transactions it references span a number of European markets: Germany (MFE-ProSieben, RTL-Sky Deutschland), the UK (Sky-ITV), Portugal (MFE-Impresa), Italy and Spain (MFE’s present operations), and, speculatively, France. MFE’s registered workplace is in Amsterdam; its operational headquarters are in Cologno Monzese, close to Milan.

Why: European business tv operators have concluded that particular person nationwide scale is inadequate to compete towards US streaming platforms – Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and YouTube – that function with worldwide content material budgets and subscriber bases no single European broadcaster can match independently. The promoting market, the place streaming has taken share from linear tv, reinforces the stress. Godard’s framing of the motion as “glacial however unstoppable” suggests the method will proceed regardless of its sluggish tempo, because the underlying aggressive dynamics make consolidation a strategic necessity fairly than an choice.


Source link