By Gregor Chalmers, Head of Broadcast, The Kite Factory
Ever since I predicted Scotland to win the 2024 Euros I’ve tried to steer clear of annual predictions, but in 2026 I’m expecting two key themes to dominate the AV discourse: consolidation and collaboration.
Consolidation: Broadcasters, Streamers and Sports Rights
Let’s take consolidation first. One of the biggest, and most surprising, developments of 2025 was the news in November that ITV were in talks to sell their media business to Sky for £1.6bn. If such a sale were to happen, the new entity would likely control over 70% of the UK TV advertising market.
Probably as little as five years ago that monopoly would have been enough for the regulators to block the sale, but many experts believe the rise of the streaming services and online players changes the dynamics. Some have even gone as far as to suggest the Sky deal should be seen as a “rescue package”: it could create something big enough to challenge the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Disney and create a powerhouse to protect investment in UK programming for years to come.
Consolidation is not only limited to the broadcasters: in late 2025 we had the drama of Netflix announcing plans to buy Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) only for Paramount to launch their own, hostile bid. The details are complicated and go beyond media (any deal will need regulatory approval from the Trump administration) but it signals the importance of streaming dominance in 2026. Whoever ultimately acquires WBD will gain access to a wealth of premium content, including franchises such as Harry Potter and Game of Thrones.
We’ve also seen big moves in terms of sports rights from the streamers, from Netflix promoting the infamous Jake Paul vs Anthony Joshua bout in late 2025 to Amazon continuing to target premium European sports rights such as the Champions League. In the states, where the streaming market is more advanced and a good barometer of what is to come in Europe and the UK, all of the streamers are aggressively targeting premium sports rights across NFL, NBA and F1. It’s making an already complicated AV market even more fragmented, making it harder for brands to plot the most effective and efficient route to reach their audience(s) across multiple platforms.
Navigating Complexity: Tools, Technology and KiteConnect
That’s why we’ve been busy building, embedding and improving KiteConnect. We understand that the AV market is changing at pace and in order to continue to deliver results for our clients we need to give our specialists the tools to navigate this change. From hyper-local regional tests to large-scale, cross platform brand launches we’ve established a clear process to make the complicated feel simple and de-risk investment through data, measurement and transparency.
What an ITV–Sky Deal Could Mean for Advertisers
But what if the sale of ITV to Sky does go through (and at the time of writing there is no clear indication as yet on timings) what would it mean for advertisers? On the negative side there is a concern that it would limit choices, especially in the sale of linear TV, which could drive up costs. Also, considering that Sky is ultimately owned by an American company (Comcast), there is no guarantee that protecting UK-made content would be a given if it went against commercial interests,
However on the more positive side it has been no secret that one of TV’s biggest challenges in recent years has been unified measurement. The rise of streaming has created multiple routes to market for advertisers but with that has come fragmentation, both of targeting and of measurement. By blending the over 40m registered users on ITVX with Sky’s 13m subscriber base, advertisers could access a more unified approach to their AV planning. Combining that with the strides we’ve made in this space through KiteGeo means that we’re well placed to take advantage of any such unification and move at speed to deliver results.
Collaboration: Measurement, Lantern and Universal Ads
Speaking of measurement we must look at our second C of 2026: collaboration. First announced in 2024 ITV, C4 and Sky have been collaborating on Lantern: a multi-outcome TV measurement panel designed to quantify the short- to medium-term outcomes driven by TV advertising. Despite numerous studies showing the impact of TV advertising on long-term profit, ROI and brand-building there remains a frustration at just how much revenue has been lost to the quick-fix of performance media. Lantern is the broadcasters answer, a unique project designed to promote not just one channel or saleshouse over another but to give marketers the confidence in their TV investment to drive results quickly. Lantern is set to launch sometime in the first half of 2026.
Lantern will also act as the measurement platform for Universal Ads, yet another collaboration between ITV, C4 and Sky. Universal Ads, set to launch in 2026, will be a self-serve, biddable marketplace for SMEs to directly access addressable inventory across the broadcasters. This would likely suit clients without access to agency expertise but could entice digitally native businesses to test TV and potentially scale.
A Fragmented Landscape Searching for Proof
The TV advertising landscape has gone through a period of intense fragmentation over the last fifteen years: as linear viewing declined BVOD initially kept the broadcasters share of overall viewing relatively intact, but the rise of streaming services and the growth of YouTube began to erode viewing share. More recently the introduction of ad tiers to the streaming platforms has directly challenged where TV revenue go and in that context the increased levels of collaboration between ITV, C4 and Sky are perhaps not a surprise. If they truly believe that in order to survive they need to stem the flow of advertiser budgets into the streaming and digital worlds, developments like Lantern are crucial and it is hoped that they can definitively prove the effect of TV in the short term.