Major European production and distribution groups: All3Media

Founded in 2003 by three former ITV executives (hence the All3 name), UK-based All3Media is one of the pioneering super-indie groups. It launched in the same year that UK producers were allowed to hold onto programme rights, thanks to the Terms of Trade. This acted as rocket fuel for a fledgling consolidator like All3Media: it grew rapidly on the back of a string of smart investments in production companies including Sam Mendes’s Neal Street Productions and Stephen Lambert’s Studio Lambert, and by selling their programmes around the world through its highly regarded distribution arm All3Media International.

Backed by private equity firms for much of its first decade, All3 was acquired by Discovery and Liberty Global in 2014. It is soon to have new owners: Jeff Zucker and Gerry Cardinale’s investment group RedBird IMI — a joint venture between RedBird Capital and Abu Dhabi’s IMI — last month agreed a $1.45bn (£1.15bn) deal for All3 (RedBird IMI also has a stake in Media Res, the studio behind Apple TV+ shows The Morning Show and Pachinko). All3’s leadership team, led by Jane Turton and Sara Geater, stay on as part of the deal.

All3Media is now the largest TV producer in the UK and maintains a balance of scripted and non-scripted programming. The group’s labels are behind reality series Squid Game: The Challenge and Goggle­box and films including Mendes’s 1917, and it has a production footprint in Germany, Belgium, the Nether­lands, New Zealand and the US. All3Media produced more than 1,000 hours of drama content in 2023, including global franchises Call The Midwife and Midsomer Murders (the latter screened in 200-plus territories worldwide). On the non-scripted side, Studio Lambert’s The Traitors has been a big hit, now commissioned in more than 25 territories.

• In focus: the major European production and distribution groups