ITV sells South Bank base

The building formerly known as the London Television Centre
(photo: David Jones)

UK broadcaster ITV has sold its London Television Centre building on the city’s South Bank to Mitsubishi Estate London.

ITV sold the building for £145.6m (US$186.3m), with completion of the transaction expected by the end of November.

The company noted that it established a pension funding partnership with the trustees backed by the London Television Centre in 2014, which resulted in some of the assets of the defined benefit pension scheme increasing by £50m.

Part of the proceeds of the sale will be used to replace the asset security, with the remaining sale proceeds going towards reducing ITV’s net debt.

The studios were previously home to much of ITV’s daytime output and entertainment shows, such as This Morning, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and The Jonathan Ross Show, and third-party productions like The Graham Norton Show for BBC1. Unions blasted the proposals to close and sell the space when they were first revealed in 2017.