Silverback Films, the Bristol-based world-leading independent producer of landmark natural history series, has been taken over by one of the UK’s largest TV production groups in a major deal for the industry.
Silverback’s acquisition by All3Media means it has joined a stable of 40-plus production and distribution companies across the UK, Europe, Asia Pacific and the US responsible for programmes as diverse as Flea Bag, The Only Way is Essex and Gogglebox. 
Founded in 2012 by leading natural history TV figures Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey, and based in St Augustine’s Yard, just off The Centre, Silverback Films has a top-class team of filmmakers creating the highest quality wildlife content for TV and cinema.
These include the recently released documentary David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, which had a worldwide cinema release in September. It became the widest-ever documentary release in British cinema history in the process before being launched globally on Netflix as its first landmark natural history series.
Silverback’s ground-breaking wildlife documentaries for the BBC include the seven-part series The Hunt, which revealed the remarkable strategies use by hunters to catch their prey.
The team has also produced 11 out of 16 Disneynature films released on streaming platform Disney+, including Bears, Monkey Kingdom, Penguins and Dolphin Reef. Elephant, narrated by The Duchess of Sussex, was released this year.
Financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed but analysts believe it to be one of the biggest in the UK TV industry for some time.
Silverback’s revenues last year were £16.4m – up 74% on 2018 – on which it made a pre-tax loss was £113,000, an improvement on 2018’s £503,000 loss.
London-headquartered All3Media achieved an 11% increase in earnings to £94m last year on revenues of £745m – up nearly 11% on 2018. During the year its 45 production companies produced more than 3,500 hours of content, which was distributed to 200-plus countries across the globe.
Silverback Films CEO Alastair Fothergill said: “All of us at Silverback Films are delighted to be joining All3Media. We have found a partner that shares our creative ambition to make the highest quality programming.
“Key to this is our shared focus on attracting and retaining the best talent long into the future. We are very excited by all the new opportunities now open to Silverback within the All3Media family and Keith and I are looking forward to leading the company through the next chapter of its development.”
All3Media CEO Jane Turton added: “I am delighted that Silverback is joining All3Media and we are looking forward to working with Alastair, Keith and the team.
“The talent is world class and Silverback is at the very top of its game at a time when the relevance of landmark natural history programming has never been greater.
“Silverback’s films are stunning – showing us the diversity of the natural world and through their fantastic storytelling and ingenious mastery of technique and technology, they capture breathtaking moments on camera and take us to places we have never seen before and continue to teach us about the world’s natural environments, and how vital it is to preserve them.”
Forthcoming Silverback projects include A Perfect Planet, described as “a unique fusion of blue-chip natural history and earth science” which explains how our living planet operates.
A five-part landmark series for BBC1 and Discovery, it will be premiered next year and will show how the forces of nature – volcanoes, sunlight, weather and oceans – drive, shape and support Earth’s great diversity of life.
The final episode will look at the dramatic impact of the world’s newest force of nature – humans – and what can be done to restore the planet’s perfect balance.
Among All3Media’s production and distribution companies are Lime Pictures, which produces Hollyoaks, Betty (The Undateables), Company Pictures (Wolf Hall), Objective Media Group (The Cube) and Neal Street Productions (Call The Midwife).
Pictured, top: David Attenborough, Maasai Mara, photo courtesy of Keith Scholey
