HomeExclusiveGuest Blogs

Who really makes your favourite TV shows? Often it’s not the channel you watch

Behind-the-scenes TV production set with a director’s chair, filming equipment and a monitor showing popular television show references.

PUBLISHED ON

|

The Traitors airs on BBC One, but the BBC doesn’t make it. Squid Game streams on Netflix, but it was made in South Korea by a company called Siren Pictures. Behind almost every hit you watch is a production house the credits flash past in seconds, and some of the most famous production companies in the world are names most viewers never notice.

So what is a production company, and why should viewers care? Because where a show is made, and by whom, decides who owns it and who gets paid when it travels the world. Each country does it differently.

01 · What it is

What is a production company?

production company noun

A business that makes TV shows, films or adverts, from the first idea to the finished programme. Production house and production company mean the same thing.

The channel or streamer that shows the programme is usually the customer. It commissions the show, pays for it and decides when it airs. The production house does the rest: it develops the idea, hires the cast and crew, films and edits the programme, and delivers it ready to air.

02 · World tour

Famous production companies around the world

From format makers to famous film production companies, every country has its own way of making screen hits. Here is how six of them do it.

Stop 1 of 6

United Kingdom: the TV production companies that keep their rights

Some of the biggest TV production companies in the UK make shows for channels they don’t belong to. Studio Lambert Scotland makes The Traitors for the BBC, along with its celebrity spin-off. Love Productions, formed in 2004 by Richard McKerrow and Anna Beattie, makes The Great British Bake Off for Channel 4.

British rules known as the Terms of Trade, brought in by the Communications Act 2003, mean independent producers usually keep the rights to what they make. That is why Bake Off was free to leave the BBC for Channel 4 in 2016.

Many of Britain’s biggest hits weren’t invented here, though.

Stop 2 of 6

Netherlands: the format factory

Big Brother was created by John de Mol Jr and first aired in 1999 on Veronica, a Dutch channel. By August 2023 it had run in more than 63 countries and regions. The Traitors began in the Netherlands too, created by the production company IDTV before Britain made its own version.

Selling formats to the world is no longer a European speciality.

Stop 3 of 6

South Korea: the production companies behind K-drama and Squid Game

Korean production companies now sell ideas everywhere. The Masked Singer began on MBC in 2015 as The King of Mask Singer, and by November 2026 the format had reached 53 countries.

Squid Game took longer. Hwang Dong-hyuk wrote it in 2009 but spent about ten years unable to find a production company to fund it. Siren Pictures eventually made it for Netflix, and it reached 111 million households in its first 17 days.

Squid Game showed what a streamer could do for a show made far from Hollywood. Spain had already found that out.

Stop 4 of 6

Spain: the production company behind Money Heist

Money Heist was made by Vancouver Media, with the broadcaster Atresmedia, for the Spanish channel Antena 3. Netflix bought its worldwide streaming rights in December 2017 and turned it into a global hit.

Turkey went further and built a whole export industry on drama.

Stop 5 of 6

Turkey: the drama exporter

Turkey is the world’s second-largest exporter of TV series by hours sold, behind only the US. Its dramas, known as dizi, reach viewers in 170 countries, according to the country’s trade minister.

Turkey sells its drama to the world. India’s production houses mostly make for an enormous audience at home, in many languages.

Stop 6 of 6

India: one country, many film industries

Production houses in India range from family studios to companies owned by the stars themselves. In Mumbai, the home of Hindi cinema, Yash Raj Films was founded by the director Yash Chopra in 1970, and Dharma Productions by Yash Johar in 1976. Shah Rukh Khan set up Red Chillies Entertainment with his wife, Gauri Khan, in 2002. Some of the biggest hits now come from elsewhere: Hombale Films in Bengaluru made K.G.F: Chapter 2, the highest-grossing Kannada film, and Mythri Movie Makers in Hyderabad is behind the Pushpa films.

Kashmir is a newer part of that map. For decades, Bollywood production houses came to the valley mainly to shoot, using it as the backdrop for films such as Junglee in 1961 and Kashmir Ki Kali in 1964. In August 2024, the Indian-administered territory of Jammu and Kashmir launched a film policy to attract and support film production there. Production is no longer only something that visits the valley. YK Media, a drama production house in Srinagar, makes Urdu and Hindi dramas and puts new episodes out every week on its own YouTube channel, with no broadcaster in between.

Some production houses stay independent. Others end up inside groups that span dozens of countries.

03 · The giants

Who are the biggest production companies in the world?

Banijay

Big Brother and The Traitors

Completed its merger with All3Media in July 2026. It now spans 25 countries and holds more than 265,000 hours of content.

Fremantle

Got Talent and Idol

The production arm of RTL Group. It owns the Idol format and co-owns Got Talent with Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment.

So who owns The Traitors?

Banijay, the group behind Big Brother. The Traitors was created by IDTV in the Netherlands, and the British version is made by Studio Lambert Scotland. Both were All3Media companies, so when the merger completed in July 2026, two Dutch-born hits ended up under one roof.

Even the most British shows change hands. Sky bought a 70 per cent stake in Love Productions in 2014 and took full ownership in 2020. In July 2026, ITV agreed to sell its media and entertainment business to Sky, and as part of the deal Sky will sell Love Productions to ITV, valuing the Bake Off maker at £200 million. The deal still needs regulatory approval and is expected to complete in the second half of 2027.

04 · Who owns the show

Who owns a TV show, the channel or the production house?

It depends on the deal, and two shows sum up the difference.

The producer owned it

Bake Off

Love Productions owned the show, so when its BBC deal came up for renewal it could move. It signed with Channel 4 on 12 September 2016, after the BBC said the two sides were “a considerable distance apart on the money”.

The creator signed it away

Squid Game

Hwang Dong-hyuk created one of Netflix’s biggest series, but gave up all intellectual property rights in his contract and received no residuals.

Ownership is where the long-term money is. A show that is owned can be sold to other countries, and its format can be licensed for local versions. The BBC owns Strictly Come Dancing, and BBC Studios sells it around the world as Dancing with the Stars, with versions made in dozens of countries.

Roll credits

· · ·

Next time the credits roll on a show you love, you’ll know which of the world’s most famous production companies really made it.

Sources we checked

Last checked: 10 November 2026.

You might also like