Formally announced on the 3rd, the merger between Banijay and All3Media, linked to RedBird, will combine a catalog of approximately 260 thousand hours of content distributed in more than 25 territories.
Under the terms of the agreement, the Banijay Group and RedBird IMI will be co-owners of the combined company, which will maintain the Banijay name. As All3Media has a smaller scale, RedBird will pay an additional €625 million in cash to equalize the stake.
Banijay Entertainment belongs to the Banijay Group, a French media company founded by billionaire Stéphane Courbit. The company was named Distributor of the Year by K7 for the third consecutive year and has around 300 international format adaptations in progress, representing 21% of all new format launches globally in 2024, as highlighted by analyst Adi Tiwary.
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Guy Bisson of Ampere Analysis presented data at the Berlinale showing that global spending on original content will remain stable over the next few years, but content licensing will increase.
The observation highlighted by Tiwary sums up what is behind the merger. According to the analyst, the move is based on some straightforward premises: expanding the catalogue, extracting more value from licensing per title in more territories and for longer periods, in addition to justifying a more robust combined balance sheet for investors in RedBird and Banijay itself.
As Deadline showed on Saturday, the deal creates a global manufacturing giant valued at around $8 billion, backed by capital from Europe, the United States and the Middle East. The transaction also marks the end of the All3Media brand after 23 years.
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The new group is expected to generate approximately €4.4 billion in revenue and approximately €690 million in EBITDA. The numbers projected by analyst Ian Whittaker help to assess the economic significance of the operation.
Although the merger strengthens the largest independent television distribution catalog on the market, what it really signals is a change in the content economy.
For decades, Whittaker recalls, television production essentially operated as a fee-based model. The producer would deliver a program, capture his production margin and move on to the next order.
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This format has limited growth potential, especially in an environment dominated by global streaming platforms with unmatched scale and distribution capacity.
According to Whittaker, the real value came to be in the possession and exploitation of intellectual property over time. A strong IP can be monetized in multiple layers such as: secondary licensing, international format adaptation, digital and social extensions, FAST channels, live experiences and brand partnerships
“The objective is to transform content into an asset that accumulates value over time”, highlighted the analyst.
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The merger and the broader discussion about prolonging the IP asset, as Whittaker argues, is timely to also address the dilemma that hangs over legacy media: television companies may lose ground because their assets were never structured to expand beyond the initial broadcast period.
The point raised by Annie Krukowska deepens this debate. According to the expert, the most relevant change occurs even before advertising is sold: in the way intellectual property is conceived, financed, structured and expanded.
While the industry remains focused on optimizing advertising returns, the economic architecture of content is being quietly reconfigured.
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“The most frequently asked question is how to increase advertising revenue. The more strategic question should be how to increase the value of intellectual property,” says Krukowska.
In a market increasingly defined by IP ownership and monetization, this distinction is essential.
The theory of diagonal integration
The co-founder of Ampere Analysis argues that the merger can be interpreted under the logic of so-called diagonal integration. In this model, explains Bisson, when two companies come together, each incorporates capabilities that the other did not have, instead of simply expanding existing activities.
When analyzing the case from this perspective, Tiwary observes that Banijay provides infrastructure for live events, while All3Media adds Little Dot Studios, a digital production company with more than a decade of experience, to the equation.
In theory, the combined company could cover the entire intellectual property lifecycle: format creation, international launch, digital distribution, live activations and specialized licensing.
The set of capabilities is potentially differentiated, as long as it is effectively integrated.
Bisson, however, makes an important caveat: being under the same controlling company does not necessarily mean operational integration.
After acquisitions, most subsidiaries tend to continue operating as semi-autonomous units that simply share the same balance sheet.
In the same vein, Whittaker highlights that Banijay has one of the strongest portfolios of global unscripted formats, while All3Media adds premium scripted and factual programming, especially in the UK, still one of the most exportable content markets in the world.
The combination significantly expands the IP creation engine, both in the existing catalog and in future production.
This movement also changes the logic of capital allocation. The more valuable the intellectual property library becomes, the more the focus shifts from simply producing content to building lasting assets.
As Whittaker notes, this deal is not primarily driven by cost synergies. Management projects around €50 million in operational efficiencies, a modest amount given the scale of the business.
The real opportunity is on the revenue side, especially in expanding franchises globally and exploiting intellectual property across different platforms.
The new economic design of content
The expansion of IP under the logic of franchising also intersects with the reorganization of content on vertically integrated FAST platforms. Not all of these environments are economically transformative. On the contrary, many of them remain essentially commodities.
When they are structured with a focus on the depth of franchises, and not just on the multiplication of channels, in turn, a different logic emerges: the engagement and lifetime value of the audience starts to be extended throughout the library.
The objective is no longer to increase the volume of content but to strengthen intellectual property assets.
It’s in this context that Annie Krukowska points to a growing phenomenon: brand-funded scripted hybrids are starting to appear in content commissioning cycles in ways that would have been commercially complex a decade ago.
Most still function as tactical integration. However, some experiments indicate something deeper. Instead of just buying advertising exposure, brands begin to act as risk-sharing capital.
When this occurs, the financing model itself changes even before revenue is generated.
Following the same logic described by Whittaker, Krukowska argues that platforms began to incorporate commercial logic in the format design phase.
Rights begin to be incorporated from the beginning with future extensions in mind: licensing, live adaptations, international spin-offs, community models, data capture and commercial partnerships.
Advertising is still present, but it no longer alone defines the economic structure of content. Here, the economic outlook changes even as the content itself remains similar.
According to Krukowska, these movements do not have the main objective of improving advertising. They indicate a deeper reorganization of how capital is structured around intellectual property.
For much of the history of commercial television, value creation was linked to the scale of distribution. The model was relatively simple: order content, distribute it on a large scale, and monetize the exposure.
Today, as the analyst summarizes, the industry is starting to treat intellectual property not just as programming, but as a capital asset.
Capital, debt and investor logic
When the merger is completed in the second half of this year, the combined Banijay will bring together around 170 producers around the world. Among them are Studio Lambert, responsible for The Traitors, Kudos, producer of Peaky Blinders, and Neal Street, which develops the Beatles films directed by Sam Mendes.
The long Deadline article I cited at the beginning puts Banijay as the possible winner of the merger, with RedBird IMI paying Banijay to bring its stake to 50%.
During the call with investors, the publication revealed, company executives were asked about the debt level of the new structure.
One analyst pointed out that All3Media’s debt of $1.1 billion was already significant and asked how it would be managed when combined with Banijay’s net debt, estimated at €2.57 billion.
Banijay’s CFO, Sophie Kurinckx-Leclerc, responded that the expectation is to “leverage” the debt based on growth and cash generation of the combined company. She also mentioned planned cost cuts and a growth profile considered strong by management.
Internally, there is a perception that RedBird IPTU’s investment signals to the market that the new structure was born with relevant financial support.
A former senior Banijay executive summarized the rationale for the merger to Deadline:
“Banijay is not simply going to invest €600 million in talent. The company has always needed to refinance debt, and the cash component that RedBird IMI brings to the operation is extremely attractive.”
For Tiwary, the “most honest” conclusion about the merger is that it reflects three simultaneous pressures: investor demand for scale, the stagnation of the original content market and the need to build a balance sheet capable of supporting growing licensing revenues.
“This is not a criticism. It is a description of rational behavior in the current environment,” he says.
In the end, Tiwary argues, the creative industry narrative about integration, strategic partnerships and blockbuster production is not wrong, just incomplete.
“The financial thesis came first. The creative strategy was built to fit it.”
