EXCLUSIVE: All3Media has written down the value of a number of its production houses, including Lime Pictures by £25M ($33M) following the reduction in weekly episodes of Hollyoaks.
Revealed in yesterday’s All3Media full-year results, the Traitors super-indie made an overall write-down of just over £60M after Lime, Optomen, All3Media Germany and Seven Stories were re-valued following RedBird IMI‘s acquisition of All3 last year.
The Lime write-down was partly the result of Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks reducing weekly episodes from five to three. Having aired on Channel 4 for 30 years, produced out of Lime’s base near Liverpool, the show shifted last year to a digital-first strategy that sees eps air in full on YouTube. The closure of Lime’s London base and a restructure of operations amounted to around £8M of the write-down.
Meanwhile, At Home with the Furys producer Optomen took a £20M write-down, which was put down to a “reduction in anticipated future revenue from [All3Media’s] participation in executive producer fees and distribution revenue following the restructure of US operations.” We are told this solely relates to Mysteries at the Museum producer Optomen US, which closed down as a production unit five years ago.
In Germany, All3Media took a £15M hit on the closure of The Traitors Germany producer Tower Productions and a subsequent restructure. Tower’s closure last November impacted around 30 staff, according to German outlet DWDL. All3’s results said “management’s long-range plan shows a gradual market return from 2025, continuing into 2026” in its German operation, which remains active.
The write-downs of some of its most storied production houses came following what is termed an “impairment review” by All3’s new parent RedBird IMI. The £62M “impairment of goodwill” led All3Media to a loss of £106M last year, but the charge is non-cash, meaning All3Media’s adjusted EBITDA (its preferred measure of profit) stood at £105M, only a slight decrease from 2023. Revenue tumbled 10% to £895M.
Shift in thinking
Notably, the results pointed to a shift in thinking around commissioning and its prodcos – called “components” in the results – since RedBird IMI’s £1.15B takeover. All3’s results said RedBird IMI “review performance of the UK on an aggregate basis rather than at an individual production company level.”
“Results are reported to shareholders by geographical split with less prominence for individual
component results,” it added. “If there is an opportunity to produce a new show with a large broadcaster, group management will decide which component is best placed to produce it based on a component’s previous experience in that genre or target audience rather than assigning the production to an underperforming component to improve their individual results.”
Yesterday’s results said All3Media had been hit by “softer demand in a challenging market” in 2024. The company has said it is prioritizing “US growth and geographical expansion” but has been relatively quiet in the M&A market of late.
