ITV Takes Stake in German Outfit

LONDON, September 30:
ITV’s Global Content division has acquired a 51.2-percent interest in the
Berlin-based TV producer in Imago TV Film-und Fernsehproduktion, through its
wholly owned Granada Germany subsidiary.

The move is part of ITV’s
global growth strategy, as it looks to ramp up its presence in the German
format creation-and-production market. Overall, ITV is looking to increase
Global Content revenues to £1 billion by 2012.

The stake was acquired
from Imago's founders and key creative talent, Andrea Schonhuber-Majewski and
Fabian Sabo, for an initial price of 2 million euros, with a further cash
payment of 3.7 million euros contingent on Imago's profit performance over a
three-year period. ITV also has a call option window post the publication of
Imago's 2011 financials to pick up the remaining 48.8-percent interest.

The deal grants ITV the
exclusive international rights to distribute and exploit the content, formats
and series rights retained by Imago.

Lee Bartlett, ITV’s
managing director of global content, stated: "This deal fits perfectly
with our plans to grow our production, format creation, and distribution
businesses in line with ITV's turnaround strategy. Adding Imago to our
portfolio gives additional scale to our German business, especially as Imago
has a very strong creative focus generating its own exploitable formats and has
excellent relationships across a wide range of German networks. I'm sure that
this new alliance will bring Imago the type of benefits they need to grow and
strengthen their portfolio."

—By Mansha Daswani