The future of All3Media has been under discussion for a large portion of 2023, and it appears a deal might be reaching the finish line. It’s entirely possible there will have been another update by the time you read this, but as of right now it looks like the auction for the Squid Game: The Challenge and The Traitors super-indie will end with rival Banijay the winner. In October, we revealed Banijay, Peter Chernin’s North Road Company and Goldman Sachs were the frontrunners, with ITV keeping tabs on things from the sidelines. At industry shindig Content London this week (more on that below), rumors were flying that the bidding process was coming to a head, with conflicting reports of who’s in and who’s out. The one consistent name is Big Brother and Survivor owner Banijay. On Friday, we reported that it is now in the driving seat, with Reuters saying Marco Bassetti’s outfit has made a binding offer for the Warner Bros. Discovery and Liberty Global-owned company. We hear All3 is still valued at around £1B, although Reuters claimed All3 wants 13 times its £100M yearly earnings, totalling around £1.3B. Quizzed on stage at Content London about a deal, Bassetti kept quiet, choosing instead to criticize private equity firms for “raising expectation in the market” following a slew of mega-money deals from PE-backed companies. He also revealed a push into sports programing.Should Banijay’s offer be taken forwards, the firms will enter into an exclusive period of due diligence. One M&A source said this would likely take a few months, meaning a deal could close early next year, though it’s not implausible that it gets done this side of Christmas. A merged Banijay-All3 would be a significant competitor to BBC Studios and ITV Studios in the UK, effectively consolidating most of the major super-indies of the 21st century within its ranks. As industry watchers will already know, the current Banijay already owns the former Endemol Shine Group and Zodiak Media production companies, while All3 has more than 50 labels and is one of the biggest of its kind in the UK, counting the likes of Objective Media Group, Raw and Neal Street Productions in its stable.Among All3’s biggest assets is its long-time collaboration with Stephen Lambert’s unscripted hit machine Studio Lambert. While the ownership of the production house is complicated, who wouldn’t want to be associated with shows such as Gogglebox, The Traitors and Squid Game: The Challenge? The latter, a competition series based on the Netflix drama with a mind boggling $4.56M prize, is Studio Lambert’s latest hit. The debut episode racked up more than 2 million viewers in five days in the UK, according to official data. That made it the most-streamed show in the country (excluding Prime Video and Apple TV+). Anyone for a game of ‘Red Light, Green Light’?
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