Mike Fries, the boss of All3Media co-owner Liberty Global have said they are receiving a lot of interest in the studio, including from U.K. network ITV.
“We’re just starting the [sale] process and pretty much everybody you can think of is interested, even that company here ITV,” Fries said during the Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge, U.K. on Wednesday.
ITV had previously said they were “no longer actively exploring” a purchase after initially expressing interest.
“All3 is an incredible business,” Fries continued. “But the industry is changing and studios are searching for scale, especially pure play studios like All3Media. Warner Bros. Discovery are our partner and we decided this might be a business that has greater value in a larger platform and could be a catalyst for consolidation and really help transform other studio businesses. It has nothing to do with the business itself.”
“It’s not quite as strategic to us as it might be to Warner Bros. Discovery but they’re in their own situation as you well know. It’s bittersweet. Let’s see what happens. We don’t know exactly what will happen if we end up continuing to own it, that will be fine with me as well.”
Fries said aside from ITV a number of companies had expressed an interest in snapping up the business, which is known for producing hit shows including “Fleabag” and “The Traitors.”
“The management team there, the assets, the studios they have are world-class and in terms of the interest we’re getting we’re not the only ones who think that,” Fries said.
Fries also addressed the WGA and SAG strikes that have brought the industry — both at home and abroad — to an almost total standstill. “It’s a tricky, tricky question,” Fries said of how the strikes might be resolved.
“As I understand it the writers and actors are asking for all these normal things. They understandably want more compensation, better services, better benefits, these are fair and reasonable requests,” he said.
Addressing two of the main sticking points in the negotiations — streaming and AI — Fries said: “This is an inflection point that’s unusual for everybody, if you’re a writer or an actor you want to see your films on the screen, you want to know what people are thinking, you want to have impact on society. It’s difficult to do that if it’s on a streaming platform — you don’t really know what happened. That transparency I think is critical for the creative industry.”
As for AI, he said that at the moment “there’s a lot of fear of the unknown. I’m not sure it’s the best time to negotiate this.”