Weinstein considers TV split

The Weinstein Company is considering spinning off its TV production business as a separate entity, by either selling to a rival firm or taking it public via a stock market flotation.

The move could see the firm expand with a newly formed TV channels business or sold to digitally focused outfits such as Amazon or Google, according to a report in the New York Times.

“It’s not about needing anything. If anything, we’re in the best financial shape of our lives,” co-chairman Harvey Weinstein told the newspaper.

The previously film-focused firm moved into TV with reality series Project Runway before expanding its output with the likes of VH1’s Mob Wives, Cement Heads for A&E, The Ten Commandments for WGN America and Marco Polo for Netflix.

The firm, which was founded in 2005 and remains privately owned, has also taken North American rights to BBC talkshow The Graham Norton Show and its TV success is now prompting Weinstein to eye further expansion.

C21 revealed last year that the firm had come onboard BBC Worldwide/Lookout Point six-part epic War & Peace, just months after The Weinstein Company signed a deal with Netflix which it said would “reinvent pay TV in America.”

The company is also working on a new comedy about Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy for the BBC and is working with Miramax and eOne Television.

Any takeover would come amid frenetic M&A activity in the industry, most recently with 21st Century Fox’s plan to form a joint venture with Apollo Global Management to bring Shine Group, Core Media Group and Endemol under one umbrella.

Elsewhere, Discovery Communications and Liberty Global have bought All3Media, ITV Studios has taken over Leftfield Entertainment Group, Warner Bros Television has tied up a deal for Eyeworks and Tinopolis Group has acquired Magical Elves.