Market Loop - ITV goes back to nature

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15th June 2022

Bite-sized business news from the UK and beyond

Good morning Another piece of iconic tech of the 90s and 00s was retired overnight. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser bid farewell after 27 years with users redirected to Edge, the newer browser. It comes just weeks after Apple announced that it would be pulling the plug on the iPod after more than 20 years.

Today's stories

ITV goes back to nature
Crypto market meltdown

MEDIA
ITV goes back to nature

What happened?
Yesterday ITV announced it had bought a 79.5% stake in Plimsoll Productions, the largest independent producer of natural history programmes globally. The deal, worth £104m, is part of ITV’s strategy to diversify its content.

In the age of streaming, content is king. ITV and its traditional broadcaster peers like BBC and Channel 4 must now compete with Netflix, Amazon and Disney for viewer attention. In order to do this they need a strong back catalogue of content.

Founded in 2013, Plimsoll has won Oscars, BAFTAs and Emmys for its work and has made hundreds of hours of content which is watched, and sold, in nearly 200 countries.

The production house produces a strong roster of programmes including Tiny World and Giant World for Apple+, Hostile Planet and Supernatural Planet for Disney, Night on Earth and Animal for Netflix and A Year on Planet Earth for ITV.

This type of content is popular on streaming platforms across the world and had previously been missing from ITV’s production portfolio which includes programmes like Love Island and Come Dine With Me.

Plimsoll also has a growing documentary and factual entertainment department producing for the likes of BBC, ABC and CNN.

News of the acquisition comes as the broadcasting landscape faces a major shakeup. In April the government announced controversial plans to take Channel 4 from public to private hands with ITV rumoured to be a potential buyer.

Other stories to keep you in the loop

Government pulls plug electric car subsidies
Amazon Prime deliveries are going to start arriving by drone
Rail strikes: Thousands more workers to vote on action
Missguided shoppers will not get refunds for returns
Starling Bank buys £500m mortgage book
New Go-Ahead owner reveals plans for London
Netflix plans real-life Squid Game reality TV show with $4.56m prize
JP Morgan wins £1.4bn court battle against Nigeria

CRYPTO
Crypto market meltdown

It’s been another rollercoaster week for cryptocurrency…and it’s only Wednesday.

Bitcoin, the biggest and most well-known crypto, dropped below $24k for the first time since 2020, sending ripples through the industry. It's a huge fall from the all time high of $60k reached back in November.

Celsius, one of the biggest crypto lenders, halted transactions for its nearly 2m customers, citing “extreme market conditions.” Rumours have circulated for weeks that the firm was in trouble and running low on funds. Celsius manages around $12bn in assets, and it remains to be seen when (and if) customers will get their money back.

Coinbase and BlockFi became the latest crypto exchanges to lay off hundreds of employees joining peers Crypto.com and Gemini who announced cuts just weeks ago.

Many people had high hopes for crypto thinking that it would be a good investment in a high inflation and choppy stock market environment. That hasn’t panned out so far this year.

Cryptocurrencies have now dropped to lows that make even the most dedicated investors worried.

At its peak, the crypto market was over $3tr. While stocks tumbled, the crypto market lost $200bn in value over the past week — and over $2tr in the past eight months.

Can cryptocurrency survive such a violent downturn? Long time critics of the asset who say it’s too risky and impractical to be a good store of value, will undoubtedly be thinking ‘I told you so’ considering recent events.

Stat of the day

In April average UK wages, after adjusting for inflation, fell by 4.5%, the biggest decline since 2001

Interesting links from around the web

13 ways to save money on your wardrobe
The rise of mocking work on TikTok
15 threads that will make you a better investor

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Market Loop - ITV goes back to nature

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