The independent producer behind the BBC television genealogy series Who Do You Think You Are? is set to be acquired by Shed Media, a rival television producer, for about £20 million.

Wall To Wall, which also makes New Tricks, a BBC drama, was put up for sale in the summer. An announcement confirming the deal could be made as soon as this week.

Alex Graham, the company’s chief executive, is expected to be tied in for a minimum of three years and would be likely to take a seat on the Shed Board. Mr Graham is an old friend of Eileen Gallagher, a fellow Scot and the chief executive of Shed. That link is understood to have played a crucial role in progressing the deal, as Mr Graham has for years been reluctant to sell the company he founded in 1987.

Wall to Wall is strong in both scripted programming such as Waterloo Road and nonscripted shows, including Who Do You Think You Are?. The company is in talks to sell both shows to networks in the United States. It is one of the few independents of any size that has not already been acquired in the recent wave of consolidation in the independent television production sector.

In 2006, Wall to Wall reported a turnover of £18.6 million and pretax profits of £900,000. However, profits have more than doubled since then to more than £2 million.

Shed is trying to act as a consolidator for a series of small independent producers. In September it bought Twenty Twenty, the company behind The Choir and Brat Camp, for £19 million. It also owns Ricochet, the producer of Superhuman.

The company is recovering after taking a hit a year ago when the long-running series Footballers’ Wives and Bad Girlswere dropped by ITV. Before those axings, Shed, which floated on Aim in 2005, had a share price around 144p. On Friday the stock closed at 85p.

However, credibility has been partly restored with the recommissioning of Waterloo Road by the BBC for a third series, while its quoted rival RDF Media has been battered by the furore surrounding its misleading edit of footage of the Queen.

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