Zodiak in talks to buy UK indie

Scandinavia’s second-largest production company Zodiak TV has today confirmed it is in negotiations to buy its way into the UK production sector, in the latest in a long line of acquisitions.

Having already bought Denmark’s Look Productions, a stake in Russian prodco TeleAllians and Polish production house Zebra Media in recent months, the firm today said it is “currently in closing discussions with FBC Group, the owner of the UK-based production company Diverse Productions, with regards to an acquisition.”

Zodiak went on to say that if the two companies could reach an agreement “the transaction is scheduled to close in the near future. During the negotiations Zodiak Television will inform of any material changes or updates.”

The news of FBC’s plan to sell Diverse comes only two years after it paid a reported £8m (US$14.5m) for the factual and entertainment prodco in an attempt to use Diverse’s creative talent to boost its advertiser-funded programming (AFP) business.

While FBC makes AFP titles for the likes of Cisco, Unilever, Oracle, Visa and Nokia, Diverse’s slate includes high-brow talent formats like Musicality and Operatunity as well as docs like Young Black Farmers, turning over some £13m in the process last year.

Buying Diverse would give Zodiak its long-planned foothold in the UK production sector, adding to its Scandinavian production units like Mastiff Media, MTV Mastiff, Jarowskij, T&T Broadcasters and Zodiak AFP in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway. It also has a distribution arm, ZTVW, in Denmark.