All the headlines around the long-anticipated Sky takeover of ITV have, unsurprisingly, focused on what the deal means for the average viewer’s favourite programmes, or how it will enable them to face off the threat of US-owned streaming services (conveniently ignoring that Sky is owned by US giant Comcast).

Putting aside the fact the deal means 50% of the UK’s public service broadcasters will now be owned by US media giants which have bent the knee to Trump on a regular basis, Sky’s takeover will have significant impact on the television landscape across the whole of the UK.

And while there will still be a fair amount of time to go before the dust completely settles on the deal, one aspect that has gone largely under the radar – and certainly barely even acknowledged north of the border – is what the purchase means for STV.

The purchase of ITV does not include STV, but the relationship between the two means any significant changes to the former will have massive knock-ons to the latter. Yet curiously there’s been little consideration in the Scottish media about what the ITV deal means for television in Scotland despite the long-term ramifications.

Currently, the independent franchise holder for Scotland – having bought Grampian lock, stock and oil barrels back in 1997 – STV has a monopoly over Channel 3 in Scotland and an affiliate relationship with ITV which enables it to show most of the broadcaster’s biggest hitters, with the occasional regional opt out and locally produced news services.

It’s worth remembering, at this point, that STV – like ITV – isn’t actually just one company. There’s STV the channel operator, which handles the channel 3 output within Scotland, and there’s STV Studios – the production arm which produces a lot of programming for the BBC, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The likes of Blue Lights and Bridge of Lies, Antiques Road Trip and Criminal Record are made by STV for other broadcasters, often to great acclaim.

Oh, and there’s also STV Radio, but nobody listens to that.

But with Comcast-owned Sky now having control of the rest of the Channel 3 network in the UK, it seems like there are three likely options for how the relationship between two goes forward.

• Status Quo:  Nothing changes, Comcast’s ITV and STV maintain their current co-existing relationship and viewers don’t notice any difference in output.
• Severance: ITV ends its current relationship with STV, meaning programmes such as Corrie and The Chase disappear off screens – or STV has to buy them, or replacements, in at cost.
• Takeover: ITV decides having ownership of all but Scotland makes no sense and bids to buy STV outright – creating one unified channel for branding, advertising and output purposes. STV effectively ceases to exist.

In the immediate term, the first of these options is the most likely. The deal has a bunch of regulatory hoops to jump through – with questions about media plurality, what happens with ITN now Sky News’ owner has a 40% stake in it, how jobs and programming is shared between Sky and ITV, and so on. Rocking the boat – particularly when it comes to competition issues – by bidding for STV might create even more questions from regulators which, in turn, would make shareholders uneasy.

For now, the most sensible option is to leave things as they are, get approval from the various regulatory bodies to complete the takeover, and then start thinking about the Scottish problem.

In the medium to long term, however, there are genuine questions which the deal poses about STV’s future.

Would maintaining an affiliate relationship with STV be in the best interests of ITV long term? It’s a relationship that works for the Scottish broadcaster, certainly, but a more ruthless, Comcast-driven ITV might see it differently.

Back in 2009 STV and ITV had a pretty significant falling out – the two companies suing each other for the best part of £40million, with ITV claiming STV had not been paying its contribution for programmes, and STV claiming ITV had abused its streaming rights for STV programmes.

The dispute meant many high-profile programmes disappeared off STV’s schedule for months, with the likes of Downton Abbey or Doc Martin being replaced by buy-ins from RTE or Australia, and the final series of Taggart not airing on ITV at the same time as STV.

Relations between the channels eventually healed and the dispute was settled – but it raises a spectre of what the new regime at ITV might want to do next. Currently they’re inheriting an affiliation deal which sees ITVX not allowed to stream a good chunk of its most popular programmes, like Coronation St, to anyone with Scottish IP addresses or postcodes, and which creates the clunky branding situation you see on things like the World Cup and Soccer Aid, where everything has to be described as being ‘on ITV and STV’. 

But perhaps most importantly, it means there’s a fractured ad buy network for the broadcaster rather than the full national deals it could otherwise look to secure 100% of the time.

All of that that raises the spectre of option two – that the newly minted SkITV decides the STV affiliate deal isn’t worth continuing, either in terms of hassle or value, and ends it. For ITV, taking that decision would make no difference, really. From an output point of view, virtually nothing changes – maybe the odd repeat disappears off ITV3, but your average viewer in Bicester or Billericay won’t notice a thing.

For STV, though, it would be devastating, leaving them having to fill schedules itself with the extra costs associated with licencing programming – and viewers either going elsewhere or switching off because The Chase has suddenly been replaced by the return of The Hour with Tam Cowan and Michelle McManus.

Advertising rates would likely plummet if denied the ITV hitters on a regular basis – and from both financial and reputation perspectives it would likely be a big old nail in the coffin for STV.

There would likely be significant regulatory concerns and questions asked in parliament about the impact it has, but the fact there’s precedent in recent history for the two splitting off in terms of programming rows means it’s a – remote, but not impossible – consideration.

However, the most likely outcome, medium to long term, is that the takeover-completed SkITV makes a bid to buy the Channel 3 licence bits of STV, locking in a nationwide footprint.

Recent advertising and viewership figure drops have significantly impacted on STV’s share price in recent times – with the company now valued at less than £50million. Acquiring it – financially at least – would represent loose change to Comcast and would give them full control over the entire channel 3 transmission footprint.

While there may be concerns about such a deal at Holyrood, it’s not likely the regulator would have any objection – having approved ITV’s £100million acquisition of Northern Ireland’s UTV a decade ago. And Sky/Comcast would be in a good position in terms of programming – not least by being able to offer things like SPFL games for Scottish audiences, with Sky having already committed to making some of the sport from Sky Sports free to air on ITV, which would likely be a good way of fulfilling regional output quotas.

Being able to draw on Sky News’ support – presuming that ends up being the long-term news provider for ITV, although that isn’t a given with the announcement insisting ITV and Sky News would remain separate – would bolster the newsgathering operation at a time when STV has been attracting negative coverage for its regional news cuts.

And the potential benefits of drawing on extra resources for regional programming, at a time when the BBC is making significant cuts to its own operations – with the Nations and Regions set to bear a decent chunk of that – would give an ITV-owned STV the chance to reposition itself as the lead broadcaster for Scotland.

ITV Studios wasn’t part of the deal with Sky, and it may be that STV Group would want to keep its own studio arm out of any potential transaction – although perhaps, as with the ITV deal, with an agreement baked into any purchase that Sky commits to a particular value of commissioning spent from STV Studios for a specific duration.

Notably, the recent green paper on the future of public service media in the UK talks about what the switch-off of over the air television will look like, and when it might occur – with 2034 the most likely date for the DTT services to be deactivated. The thinking is that, by that point, the majority of viewers will have broadband connectivity fast enough to be able to get all their television services through IPTV.

There are technical and geographic challenges to this, which are significantly more pronounced in Scotland where rural and mobile broadband services can be charitably described as patchy, which is why the green paper contains provisions for that date to be extended to 2044.

Ultimately, it’s likely going to be a couple of years before the future is completely clear for STV, but the acquisition of ITV by Sky does put a massive question mark over the company’s medium-to-long term future.