Media

CMS is renowned for its outstanding full-service media practice with an exceptional team of media lawyers advising on the full breadth of work across the sector including content production and financing, broadcast and distribution, music, publishing, theatre, sports rights and media regulation

Our deep sector knowledge ensures that we can focus on the issues that matter most to you, leveraging over four decades worth of experience advising clients across the sector. 

Our lawyers have been at the forefront of the development of the sector, advising on the opportunities and challenges that have arisen as a result of the continued development and convergence of media, technology and telecoms and the associated changes in the production and delivery of content and consumer interaction. Moreover, our expert team are perfectly placed to advise you on the latest regulatory developments and how the ever-evolving regulatory regime affects your business, allowing you to maximise your commercial opportunities and protect your position in a crowded market. Some of our recent focus areas have included the UK’s New Media Bill, the subscription economy and new consumer legislation

Our reputation for delivery and excellence is well deserved, as recognised by our Tier 1 ranking for Media and Entertainment in Legal 500 UK 2023. A number of our team are included in the Legal 500 hall of fame, and others as Legal 500 leading individuals. 

We offer the breadth and depth of expertise across media in the UK and across Europe, the Middle East, Asia and beyond. Recent work includes:

• The BBC and BBC Studios on a series of major transactions and strategic partnerships over the last 25 years. These have included the establishment of UKTV and BBC Studios’ subsequent buyout of Discovery from the venture, the sale of a 49.9% interest in BBC America to AMC, various significant transactions with Discovery and the creation of the BritBox SVOD service with ITV, as well as implementing digital switchover (the UK’s most significant broadcast engineering project). 
• BT on its agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery to form a 50:50 joint venture to create a new premium sports offering for the UK and Ireland. This complicated transaction also involved the transfer of BT Sport’s existing business as well as securing BT’s rights to continue to distribute the JV services, as well as WBD’s other services, to its retail base. A large multi-disciplinary CMS team advised across all aspects including corporate, media, technology, anti-trust and regulatory, finance and specialist IP. 
• Comcast Corporation on its GBP 30bn bid for Sky plc – the biggest takeover ever seen in Europe’s media industry. A team across multiple CMS territories advised on the specialist media, telecoms and gambling regulatory aspects of the deal. CMS teams in Albania and Ukraine also advised on anti-trust aspects. 
• SkyShowtime on the key building blocks for the streaming service from Sky and Paramount. These include the film and TV output deals with NBCUniversal and Paramount, as well as the media regulatory, data privacy and consumer aspects of the service across its 22 European markets. 
• ITV on its strategic deal to exclusively license an adtech platform from Amobee for the purchase and sale of targeted premium video inventory, as well as a series of investments in and acquisitions of content production businesses and investments from its media for equity fund. 
• Viacom / Channel 5 on the acquisition of UK broadcaster Channel 5, the outsourcing of the Channel 5 advertising sales function to Sky Media and the carriage deals for all Viacom UK pay channels. This deal was the first acquisition by a US entity of a UK public service broadcaster. The team has advised Viacom since it first launched MTV Europe in the late 1980s.