Line Of Duty


BBC One lines up Kelly Macdonald to guest lead on ‘Line Of Duty’

BBC One’s critically acclaimed thriller Line Of Duty has secured its next guest lead.  Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald is to star in the next season of the World Productions-made programme – a high-profile guest role that has previously been played by Stephen Graham, Thandie Newton, Daniel Mays, Keeley Hawes and Lennie James. Macdonald is to play Detective […]

BritBox links with Endemol Shine, Kew Media Distribution for North America

BritBox has struck deals with Endemol Shine International and Kew Media Distribution to bolster its North American catalogue. The streamer, which specialises in British TV, will expand its relationships with the two distributors. The deal, spanning 250 hours, marks the first US deal with BritBox for Kew. Under the deal, the distributors will supply BritBox […]

AMC launches AcornTV, UMC streamers on YouTube TV

AMC Networks is launching its UK drama-skewing streamer Acorn TV as well as its black TV and film OTT offering UMC on YouTube’s channels service. Acorn TV’s YouTube service will offer shows including Martin Clunes-starring dramas Doc Martin and Manhunt, BBC cop show Line Of Duty and its originals such as Agatha Raisin, Queens of […]

Jed Mercurio: Nothing surprises me

The Line Of Duty and Bodyguard creator tells Manori Ravindran about his relationship with the SVODs and whether a Ryan Murphy-style talent mega-deal could be on the cards At March’s INTV conference, Netflix’s VP of original series Cindy Holland was confronted with a slide of the global SVOD’s programmes, on which the Richard Madden-fronted BBC […]

What Friends tells us about rights ownership in 2019

Media giants building SVODs to rival Netflix are talking the talk, but who will walk the walk? Manori Ravindran investigates the knock-on effects of consolidation and the bigger picture around windowing and rights ownership. If 2018’s media disruption taught us anything, it was to expect the unexpected in the laser-focused drive for scale. As potential […]

Acorn TV snaps up Line Of Duty streaming rights from Hulu

US streaming service Acorn TV has snapped up US streaming rights to BBC thriller Line Of Duty from Hulu.  The British content-focused SVOD has picked up US streaming rights to season five of Line Of Duty from Kew Media Distribution.  The show previously streamed on Handmaid’s Tale platform Hulu, which premiered the show in the US in 2012. The service now has […]

Christmas cheer for record-breaking BBC iPlayer

The BBC’s on-demand service in the UK, BBC iPlayer, enjoyed a record week over Christmas, as box-set viewing rocketed. iPlayer recorded 69.2 million requests for its programming in the week between Monday, December 25 and Sunday, December 31, according to new stats from the British pubcaster. Furthermore, some 25.6 million hours were watched over the […]

Blue Planet II is BBC iPlayer’s top series of 2017

Big-ticket natural history series Blue Planet II is the most requested show on the iPlayer this year. The David Attenborough-fronted series saw its first episode received 4.2 million requests on the streaming service of the UK’s pubcaster. This narrowly topped episode one of Tom Hardy drama Taboo, which took 4.1 million. Relationship drama Doctor Foster’s […]

Returning miniseries

Distributors will tell you that if they could have one drama production in their portfolio it would be an evergreen returning franchise that rakes in the cash year after year. But this doesn’t alter the fact that TV movies, minis and limited runs are also regarded as valuable assets and are increasingly getting recommissioned as […]

ITV buys Line of Duty prodco

UK broadcaster ITV has acquired Line of Duty producer World Productions. World CEO Roger Charteris is stepping down as a result, with creative director Simon Heath the new chief exec and managing director Roderick Seligman continuing to oversee day-to-day management. ITV will take rights to all new World-produced series going forwards. Significantly, Content Television will […]