Peacock is in conversation with ITV America over a third Love Island spin-off, David George has revealed.
The boss of ITV America said chatter about another new version of the popular reality series demonstrates the importance of the Peacock brand following Comcast’s move to spin off a number of its cable nets and news networks.
ITV America already makes Love Island Games and Love Island: All Stars for Peacock, along with the original U.S. version, which has been airing on the streamer since 2022 and previously ran on CBS. ITV Studios created the original Love Island, which has sold around the world and still airs in the UK.
George said the Comcast split shows that “Peacock is the future,” further evidenced by the fact Comcast is holding on to Bravo, which “supplies tonnes of content into Peacock.” “We are keeping a close eye on it,” he added. He didn’t elaborate further on the Love Island spin-off but the Games and All Stars versions have been performing well for the streamer.
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ITV America also makes the likes of Snowpiercer, Hell’s Kitchen and Queer Eye in the States.
“Kill half your development slate”
During a Content London session today, George was brutally honest about the current market slowdown and how difficult it is for his producers to get a show away in the States, while revealing how much work his team is seeking outside the U.S.
George now tells his development teams: “This is going to sound harsh but look at your development slate and kill half of it.”
He explained: “I’ve really been saying this for the last three years because the ideas have to be so elevated and you have to be so hard on your own ideas. And that’s difficult. A lot of us produce for ourselves but you have to remember you are not making a show for yourself, you are making it for a mass audience.”
George spoke to the frequency with which big American players are now commissioning outside the States and said he “doesn’t even look at the UK and U.S. like they are different markets at times.”
He revealed that ITV America has just landed its first Australian and UK commissions for labels Leftfield Entertainment in the former and Nobody’s Hero in the latter. “We have more success exporting outside the U.S. because of this focus,” he added. More label buys in the States are unlikely any time soon as “most companies in the U.S. don’t own lots of IP,” he explained.
The decline of cable has killed off high volume shows and made things difficult for independent producers, he explained. “It’s hard to be in the one-off business,” he said. “Its hard to create a sustainable business out of singular docs that don’t come back. Without volume what does the game look like?”
In the short term, George said he anticipates global commissioning to remain sluggish.
“It will be very slow next year,” he added. “It will reset over the course of the year but a lot of buyers I speak to now are already buying for 2026. They don’t need to rush to make commissions or rush to get into production.”
He praised Netflix for remaining consistent and said other streamers pale in its wake at present, as he described Apple as “not super active,” Amazon as “still trying to figure out how unscripted works with what they are trying to do” and Peacock as “not knowing exactly what it has to be yet.” Speaking prior to George, Netflix EMEA boss Larry Tanz said “healthy competition” is the streamer’s biggest challenge as he implied competitors should be spending more on training up the next generation.
As Netflix’s rivals “find that consistency,” he predicted commissioning will “level out.” “Until that happens it just goes up and down and is hard to predict who will be active and who is not,” he said.
Mr Beast
George also spoke to the influx of YouTube talent such as Mr Beast and The Sidemen who are making it in the mainstream TV game.
He hailed Mr Beast for “having a level of control I’ve never heard of” on his shows and said traditional players need to think “how that world translates into our world.”
“How do we create more ideas in those worlds and then translate them to linear?,” he queried. “I think maybe we should invest more in the digital side, creating ownership positions for ourselves. If we are not part of it then we will be left in the dust.”
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