All the latest news from the global content industry on Wednesday 11th December

 

Wednesday, 10.16am: Sky Italy extends X Factor run

Sky Italia has agreed a two-year extension with Fremantle for the X Factor ensuring a further two series of the music competition.

The pay-TV company will remain the exclusive home for the show, which airs as a Sky original in Italy. Its most recent series finale scored its best rating for four years averaging 1.8m viewers, up 51% compared to the previous run, according to Fremantle. Read more

 

Wednesday, 9.36am: CBC, Histoire & VRT among ITVS deals 

Curve Media BBC2 eco doc On Thin Ice: Putin’s War on Greenpeace is heading to CBC in Canada amid a raft of deals secured by ITV Studios.

The series, which recently scored a Broadcast Awards 2025 nomination, will head to the Canadian PSB alongside VRT NV in Belgium, TVNZ in New Zealand, Histoire in France and ERR in Estonia.

The acquisitions come as ITVS also secured deals for true-crime, history and natural history titles My Wife, My Abuser: Captured on Camera, TikTok: Murders Gone Viral, Pompeii: The Last Mysteries, and Predator v Prey. The deals were revealed at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers in Marrakesh. Read more

 

Wednesday, 8.01am: Warner Bros TV extends Bad Robot deal

Warner Bros Television has struck a new first-look pact with JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot.

The deal runs for two years and is non-exclusive across both TV and film, according to multiple US reports. A previous five-year partnership had been struck in 2019 and was worth an estimated $250m.

Bad Robot’s slate includes Apple TV+ drama Presumed Innocent and doc Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes, although Warner Bros Discovery pulled Abrams’ high-profile Demimonde and Constantine amid broader cost-cutting. Abrams first signed with Warner Bros in 2006.